OK in all seriousness, Are children actually conditioned to laugh at Farts? Case in point: My nephew is just learning how to talk, he is 25 months old and he says certain words and can form basic sentences. He is pretty much normal. And the other day I was over at my sisters house and my brother-in-law let one fly and the nephew burst out laughing…Why I wonder? Is it the sound? Is it conditioning through parents laughter [if they do laugh]…?
Case in Point # 2: I was a pre-school teacher for close to four years during college and I was in the toddler room. When on occasion I or another teacher or a student happened to break wind audible enough to be heard by a two year old 99% of the time they would laugh histerically. The small percentage that didn’t laugh would at least have a smile pastered across their face. Any ideas on why or how this phenomenon has developed in humans???
Non-breeder checking in. I have heard from seemignly reputable sources that infants often grin or giggle when they have gas. I have no idea why they do this, but if true, it seem to follow that they would hold on to this response as they grow.
My WAG is that we human find flatulence funny because it offers such an ironic counterpoint to the pretentious eloquence that emits from our other end.
To emit some pretentious eloquence for a moment, the most basic form of humor concerns the ridiculousness and unpredictability of the human body.
I once wrote a line that I think would make a good sig if I ever got around to adding one: “The tragedy of the human condition is that we are aware of our own mortality; the comedy of the human condition is that we are aware of our own nakedness.”
Being a human animal is silly. No matter how hard we try to be serious, purposeful beings, we still eat, burp, poop, and fart. Even the smallest children recognize that there’s something funny about emitting strange, uncontrollable, foul-smelling, noisy gases from your rear end.
My guess (based on observation of two kids) is that it’s funny to babies because of the unexpected noise and possibly the silly expression on your face when it happens.
My daughter just started preschool (she’s 4) and in the few months she’s been there she has learned about “potty words” and learned that they are naughty but funny. I suspect this comes from other kids with older siblings.
WOW ok it seems like there may be some kind of human ingrained …‘something’…that makes kids possibly conditioned to laugh or smile whilst farting. I think the word itself fart is odd. I wonder where it came from. I mean its not like it is short for flatulence.
I remember as a kid laughing histerically when a friend or family member broke wind. I can only use some experience I have had with toddlers, to surmise that it is an ingrained response to laugh. I have seen children, with no siblings, at a very young age, snicker and laugh at farts. Its funny and interesting. As for the post regarding a PhD on the subject… It would be intersting, but hardly doctoral worthy, but who knows. Arizona State University has awarded a doctor who wrote his dissertaion on Garbage. Go Figure.
It’s pretty clearly a case of onomatopeia – a word that sounds like the sound (like “burp”, or “pop”). Note that the German word is “furz”, pronounced “furts”.
(In a comic strip I once saw the sound of an engine coming to life with a backfire rendered as “FARP”. Same idea. FARP certainly isn’t short for anything, but it does sound kinda like an engine backfire.)
Definition of “surprise”: A fart with a lump in it.
A friend of mine is freaked out by things that come out of his body. His wife told me that he had a “surprise”. He took off his tighty-whities, holding them in both hands, looked down at the small bolus… and then vomited in his underwear.
I had a roommate who thought flatulence was the funniest thing in the world. I don’t find farts amusing.
Although it would be fun to call someone “trumpet butt”.
If onomatopoeia is a factor then surely two words are required to describe this particular activity, viz. the almost silent fart pffffft and the loudly audible fart brrmmpp.
The French word for fart is le pet (note the masculine) and the verb is peter. There is no way that le pet can adequately portray the unforgettable sound of brrmmpp, although le pet and pffffft can be considered synonymous for the purposes of this argument, even though the former is indicative of a much shorter Active Fart Elapsed Time.
Similarly the German furz, also masculine, seems to partially reproduce pffffft without addressing the magnificently stentorian brrmmpp sound often heard in elevators and my lavatory.
The English language is a powerful tool for international communication, and it seems churlish to criticise its shortcomings, but it does seem strange that there is only one word available to describe two distinct sounds.
Something should be done about this before Spanish or Mandarin Chinese is adopted as the International Language of choice, merely because they are superior to English in Fart Categorisation.
Incidentally, according to my dictionary Italians don’t fart. How refreshing to come across a nation of people to whom brrmmpp and pffffft are alien concepts.
Perhaps it is onomatopaeia. Stemming from a language or dialect (Latin? olde English?). To them, could it have sound like “fffffffaaaaaaarrrrt”?
Every language has its own “ear”. That is, a sound like a gunshot, fart or explosion, is different to the listener depending on his/her language.
Comic strips for instance, depict sounds differently depending on the language of origin. I can’t seem to find a cite for this, but I remember reading about it some time ago.
How are “blam” or “pow” in an English/American cartoon depicted in a German, French, or Japanese comic strip? (I expect references to “fart” are scarce in comic strips.)
[hijack]
(just remember, Nutmagnet started me off)
i read japanese-translatedto-chinese comics sometimes, and i notice that a lot of them have BAKOOM to indicate an explosion. just a thought…
and another thing: in chinese, the characters for fart sound absolutely NOTHING like farts (well, maybe the squeaky little ones). it sounds something like “Pee”, written like the chinese character for “butt”. an interesting bit of trivia to impress your drinking friends with, brought to you by Cougarfang[sup]TM[/sup]
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Quite the distinguished ancestry for a word - but not surprising since it describes an event that’s been in the world since the first multicellular being developed the ana sphincter.
I don’t have my English<>Italian dictionary with me, but I’m sure there is a word for “fart” - probably similar to the French and Spanish words, since it’s a Romance language. Dunno about the onomatopoeic sound, however. I’m sure there must be one.
Are we conditioned to laugh? I don’t know. I have anecdotal evidence from Valkyrie that we’re not - when she was in grade school, her family was one where flatulence was not acceptable. So she didn’t find out about it until going to school and one of her classmates let a biggun rip. She collapsed in helpless laughter and couldn’t even explain to the teacher why she was laughing because she didn’t know the word for it. Of course then when she discovered the word, she spelled it F-O-T on the girls’ room wall.
My wife, the southern New England cut-up. Now she just yells at me when I pass gas. Like hers don’t stink. :rolleyes:
I was all set to throw in a paragraph about how many good quotes in the OED were sig material, and looking up “fart” gave me a new one. Anyway, here it is.
