Fart
Encyclopedia
Fart is an English language
vulgarism
most commonly used in reference to flatulence
. The word "fart" is generally considered unsuitable in a formal environment by modern English speakers, and it may be considered vulgar
or offensive in some situations. Fart can be used as a noun
or a verb
. The immediate roots are in the Middle English words ferten, feortan or farten; which is akin to the Old High German word ferzan. Cognates are found in old Norse, Slavic and also Greek and Sanskrit. The word "fart" has been incorporated into the colloquial
and technical speech
of a number of occupations, including computing.
Fart is sometimes used as a non-specific derogatory epithet
, often to refer to 'an irritating or foolish
person', and potentially an elderly person, described as an 'old fart'. This may be taken as an insult when used in the second or third person, but can potentially be a term of endearment, or an example of self deprecatory humour when used in the first person. The phrase 'boring old fart' was popularised in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s by the New Musical Express while chronicling the rise of punk
. It was used to describe hippies and establishment figures in the music industry, forces of inertia against the new music.
origins are confirmed by the many cognate
words in other Indo-European languages
: It is cognate with Greek
πέρδομαι (perdomai), Latin pēdĕre, Sanskrit
pardate, Avestan
pərəδaiti, French
"péter", Russian
пердеть (perdet') and Polish
"pierd" << PIE
*perd [break wind loudly] or *pezd [the same, softly], all of which mean the same thing. Like most Indo-European roots in the Germanic languages
, it was altered by Grimm's law
, so that Indo-European /p/ > /f/, and /d/ > /t/, as the German
cognate furzen also manifests.
with an often humorous connotation
. For example, a person may be referred to as a 'fart', or an 'old fart', not necessarily depending on the person's age. This may convey the sense that a person is boring or overly fussy and be intended as an insult, mainly when used in the second or third person. For example '"he's a boring old fart!" However the word may be used as a colloquial term of endearment or in an attempt at humorous self-deprecation (e.g., in such phrases as "I know I'm just an old fart" or "you do like to fart about!"). 'Fart' is often only used as a term of endearment when the subject is personally well known to the user. In both cases though, it tends to refer to personal habits or traits that the user considers to be a negative feature of the subject, even when it is a self-reference. For example, when concerned that a person is being overly methodical they might say 'I know I'm being an old fart', potentially to forestall negative thoughts and opinions in others. When used in an attempt to be offensive, the word is still considered vulgar, but it remains a mild example of such an insult. This usage dates back to the Medieval period, where the phrase 'not worth a fart' would be applied to an item held to be worthless.
occurs in "Sumer Is Icumen In
", where one sign of summer is "bucke uerteþ" (the buck
farts). It appears in several of Geoffrey Chaucer
's Canterbury Tales. In "The Miller's Tale", Absolon has already been tricked into kissing Alison's buttocks when he is expecting to kiss her face. Her boyfriend Nicholas hangs his buttocks
out of a window, hoping to trick Absolon into kissing his buttocks in turn and then passes gas in the face of his rival. In "The Summoner's Tale", the friars in the story are to receive the smell of a fart through a twelve spoked wheel.
In the early-modern period, the word fart was not considered especially vulgar; it even surfaced in literary works. For example, Samuel Johnson
's A Dictionary of the English Language
, published in 1755, included the word. Johnson defined it with two poems, one by Jonathan Swift
, the other by Sir John Suckling
. In 1607, a group of Members of Parliament had written a ribald poem entitled The Parliament Fart, as a symbolic protest against the conservatism of the House of Lords
and the king, James I
.
's original seven dirty words
, he noted in a later routine that the word fart, ought to be added to "the list" of words that were not acceptable (for broadcast) in any context (which have non-offensive meanings), and described television as (then) a "fart-free zone". Thomas Wolfe
had the phrase 'a fizzing and sulphuric fart' cut out of his 1929 work Look Homeward, Angel
by his publisher. Ernest Hemingway
, who had the same publisher, accepted the principle that fart could be cut, on the grounds that no one should use words only to shock. The hippie
movement in the 1970s saw a new definition develop, with the use of fart as a personal noun, to describe a 'detestable person, or someone of small stature or limited mental capacity', gaining wider and more open usage as a result.
Rhyming slang developed the alternative form 'Raspberry Tart', later shortened to 'Raspberry', and occasionally 'Razz'. This was associated with the phrase 'blowing a raspberry'. The word has become more prevalent, and now features in children's literature, such as the Walter the Farting Dog
series of children's books, Robert Munsch
's Good Families Don't and The Gas We Pass
by Shinta Cho. Teachers in American schools have been encouraged to use books about farts to make children more comfortable with the word.
According to The Alphabet of Manliness, the assigning of blame for farting is part of a ritual of behaviour. This may involve deception and a back and forth rhyming game.
, and the government of that country plans to punish persistent offenders. That crime and others will be enforceable in a new 'Local Court' system in a bill soon to be debated in the country's parliament.
The Whoopee cushion
is a joking device invented in the early 20th century for simulating a fart.
. It is a more modern usage, similar in derivation to the term fart to denote uselessness or a period of low achievement. In some cases, particularly the corporate world, it may be used to describe a situation where a person has spoken out of turn to a superior figure. This usage implies a momentary lack of forethought and a break in good sense, which may be colloquially explained away as the result of a 'brain fart'.
for a bed or sleeping bag
. A 'nun's fart' is a French term for a type of sweet dessert sprinkled with sugar.
(also known as queef) is an emission or expulsion of air from the vagina
that may occur during or after sexual intercourse
or (less often) during other sexual acts, stretching or exercise.
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
vulgarism
Vulgarism
A vulgarism , also called scurrility, is a colloquialism of an unpleasant action or unrefined character, which substitutes a coarse, indecorous word where the context might lead the reader to expect a more refined expression.-See also:*Euphemism*Grotesque body*Ribaldry, scatology, toilet...
most commonly used in reference to flatulence
Flatulence
Flatulence is the expulsion through the rectum of a mixture of gases that are byproducts of the digestion process of mammals and other animals. The medical term for the mixture of gases is flatus, informally known as a fart, or simply gas...
. The word "fart" is generally considered unsuitable in a formal environment by modern English speakers, and it may be considered vulgar
VULGAR
Vulgar is the fourth studio album released by Dir En Grey on September 10, 2003 in Japan and on February 21, 2006 in Europe. A limited edition containing an additional DVD was also released. It featured the video of the song "Obscure", albeit a censored version...
or offensive in some situations. Fart can be used as a noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
or a verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
. The immediate roots are in the Middle English words ferten, feortan or farten; which is akin to the Old High German word ferzan. Cognates are found in old Norse, Slavic and also Greek and Sanskrit. The word "fart" has been incorporated into the colloquial
Colloquialism
A colloquialism is a word or phrase that is common in everyday, unconstrained conversation rather than in formal speech, academic writing, or paralinguistics. Dictionaries often display colloquial words and phrases with the abbreviation colloq. as an identifier...
and technical speech
Jargon
Jargon is terminology which is especially defined in relationship to a specific activity, profession, group, or event. The philosophe Condillac observed in 1782 that "Every science requires a special language because every science has its own ideas." As a rationalist member of the Enlightenment he...
of a number of occupations, including computing.
Fart is sometimes used as a non-specific derogatory epithet
Epithet
An epithet or byname is a descriptive term accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title...
, often to refer to 'an irritating or foolish
Foolishness
Foolishness is the lack of wisdom. In this sense it differs from stupidity, which is the lack of intelligence. An act of foolishness is sometimes referred to as a folly....
person', and potentially an elderly person, described as an 'old fart'. This may be taken as an insult when used in the second or third person, but can potentially be a term of endearment, or an example of self deprecatory humour when used in the first person. The phrase 'boring old fart' was popularised in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s by the New Musical Express while chronicling the rise of punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
. It was used to describe hippies and establishment figures in the music industry, forces of inertia against the new music.
Etymology
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary. Its Indo-EuropeanProto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
origins are confirmed by the many cognate
Cognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
words in other Indo-European languages
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
: It is cognate with Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
πέρδομαι (perdomai), Latin pēdĕre, Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
pardate, Avestan
Avestan language
Avestan is an East Iranian language known only from its use as the language of Zoroastrian scripture, i.e. the Avesta, from which it derives its name...
pərəδaiti, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
"péter", Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
пердеть (perdet') and Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
"pierd" << PIE
Pie
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....
*perd [break wind loudly] or *pezd [the same, softly], all of which mean the same thing. Like most Indo-European roots in the Germanic languages
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
, it was altered by Grimm's law
Grimm's law
Grimm's law , named for Jacob Grimm, is a set of statements describing the inherited Proto-Indo-European stops as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the 1st millennium BC...
, so that Indo-European /p/ > /f/, and /d/ > /t/, as the German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
cognate furzen also manifests.
Vulgarity and offensiveness
In certain circles the word is considered merely a common profanityProfanity
Profanity is a show of disrespect, or a desecration or debasement of someone or something. Profanity can take the form of words, expressions, gestures, or other social behaviors that are socially constructed or interpreted as insulting, rude, vulgar, obscene, desecrating, or other forms.The...
with an often humorous connotation
Connotation
A connotation is a commonly understood subjective cultural or emotional association that some word or phrase carries, in addition to the word's or phrase's explicit or literal meaning, which is its denotation....
. For example, a person may be referred to as a 'fart', or an 'old fart', not necessarily depending on the person's age. This may convey the sense that a person is boring or overly fussy and be intended as an insult, mainly when used in the second or third person. For example '"he's a boring old fart!" However the word may be used as a colloquial term of endearment or in an attempt at humorous self-deprecation (e.g., in such phrases as "I know I'm just an old fart" or "you do like to fart about!"). 'Fart' is often only used as a term of endearment when the subject is personally well known to the user. In both cases though, it tends to refer to personal habits or traits that the user considers to be a negative feature of the subject, even when it is a self-reference. For example, when concerned that a person is being overly methodical they might say 'I know I'm being an old fart', potentially to forestall negative thoughts and opinions in others. When used in an attempt to be offensive, the word is still considered vulgar, but it remains a mild example of such an insult. This usage dates back to the Medieval period, where the phrase 'not worth a fart' would be applied to an item held to be worthless.
Historical examples
The word fart in Middle EnglishMiddle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
occurs in "Sumer Is Icumen In
Sumer Is Icumen In
"Sumer Is Icumen In" is a traditional English round, and possibly the oldest such example of counterpoint in existence. The title might be translated as "Summer has come in" or "Summer has arrived"....
", where one sign of summer is "bucke uerteþ" (the buck
Deer
Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...
farts). It appears in several of Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
's Canterbury Tales. In "The Miller's Tale", Absolon has already been tricked into kissing Alison's buttocks when he is expecting to kiss her face. Her boyfriend Nicholas hangs his buttocks
Buttocks
The buttocks are two rounded portions of the anatomy, located on the posterior of the pelvic region of apes and humans, and many other bipeds or quadrupeds, and comprise a layer of fat superimposed on the gluteus maximus and gluteus medius muscles. Physiologically, the buttocks enable weight to...
out of a window, hoping to trick Absolon into kissing his buttocks in turn and then passes gas in the face of his rival. In "The Summoner's Tale", the friars in the story are to receive the smell of a fart through a twelve spoked wheel.
In the early-modern period, the word fart was not considered especially vulgar; it even surfaced in literary works. For example, Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
's A Dictionary of the English Language
A Dictionary of the English Language
Published on 15 April 1755 and written by Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary, is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language....
, published in 1755, included the word. Johnson defined it with two poems, one by Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
, the other by Sir John Suckling
John Suckling (poet)
Sir John Suckling was an English poet and one prominent figure among those renowned for careless gaiety, wit, and all the accomplishments of a Cavalier poet; and also the inventor of the card game Cribbage...
. In 1607, a group of Members of Parliament had written a ribald poem entitled The Parliament Fart, as a symbolic protest against the conservatism of the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
and the king, James I
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
.
Modern usage
By the early twentieth century, the word "fart" had come to be considered rather vulgar in most English-speaking cultures. While not one of George CarlinGeorge Carlin
George Denis Patrick Carlin was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums....
's original seven dirty words
Seven dirty words
The seven dirty words are seven English language words that American comedian George Carlin first listed in 1972 in his monologue "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television". The words include: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits...
, he noted in a later routine that the word fart, ought to be added to "the list" of words that were not acceptable (for broadcast) in any context (which have non-offensive meanings), and described television as (then) a "fart-free zone". Thomas Wolfe
Thomas Wolfe
Thomas Clayton Wolfe was a major American novelist of the early 20th century.Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels, plus many short stories, dramatic works and novellas. He is known for mixing highly original, poetic, rhapsodic, and impressionistic prose with autobiographical writing...
had the phrase 'a fizzing and sulphuric fart' cut out of his 1929 work Look Homeward, Angel
Look Homeward, Angel
Look Homeward, Angel: A Story of the Buried Life is a 1929 novel by Thomas Wolfe. It is Wolfe's first novel, and is considered a highly autobiographical American Bildungsroman. The character of Eugene Gant is generally believed to be a depiction of Wolfe himself. The novel covers the span of time...
by his publisher. Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
, who had the same publisher, accepted the principle that fart could be cut, on the grounds that no one should use words only to shock. The hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
movement in the 1970s saw a new definition develop, with the use of fart as a personal noun, to describe a 'detestable person, or someone of small stature or limited mental capacity', gaining wider and more open usage as a result.
Rhyming slang developed the alternative form 'Raspberry Tart', later shortened to 'Raspberry', and occasionally 'Razz'. This was associated with the phrase 'blowing a raspberry'. The word has become more prevalent, and now features in children's literature, such as the Walter the Farting Dog
Walter the Farting Dog
Walter the Farting Dog is a series of children's books by William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murray, and illustrated by Audrey Colman. All the books in the series star Walter and his many flatulent adventures. In 2007 the fifth book in the series, Walter the Farting Dog: Banned From the Beach, was released...
series of children's books, Robert Munsch
Robert Munsch
Robert Norman Munsch, CM is an American-born Canadian children's author.-Personal life and career:Robert Munsch was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...
's Good Families Don't and The Gas We Pass
The Gas We Pass
The Gas We Pass: The Story of Farts is a children's book written by Shinta Cho. The book tells children about flatulence , and that it is completely natural to do so....
by Shinta Cho. Teachers in American schools have been encouraged to use books about farts to make children more comfortable with the word.
According to The Alphabet of Manliness, the assigning of blame for farting is part of a ritual of behaviour. This may involve deception and a back and forth rhyming game.
Society and culture
On 28 January 2011 it was reported that breaking wind is set to be made a crime in MalawiMalawi
The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size...
, and the government of that country plans to punish persistent offenders. That crime and others will be enforceable in a new 'Local Court' system in a bill soon to be debated in the country's parliament.
The Whoopee cushion
Whoopee cushion
A whoopee cushion, also known as a poo-poo cushion and Razzberry Cushion, is a practical joke device, used in a form of flatulence humor, which produces a noise resembling a raspberry or human flatulence. It is made from two sheets of rubber that are glued together at the edges...
is a joking device invented in the early 20th century for simulating a fart.
As a verb phrase
Following on from 'fart' being used to refer to an irritating or foolish person, the verb phrase 'fart around', meaning to spend time foolishly or aimlessly is also utilised. Again this can be in a humorous attempt at a term of endearment, or as an insult. The implication is that the person is being a 'fart', and otherwise is wasting time, or achieving little.As a lapse in concentration
The term 'brain fart', often used as a synonym for a 'senior moment', or a momentary lapse in concentration or occurrence of forgetfulness, such as an Absence seizureAbsence seizure
Absence seizures are one of several kinds of seizures. These seizures are sometimes referred to as petit mal seizures ....
. It is a more modern usage, similar in derivation to the term fart to denote uselessness or a period of low achievement. In some cases, particularly the corporate world, it may be used to describe a situation where a person has spoken out of turn to a superior figure. This usage implies a momentary lack of forethought and a break in good sense, which may be colloquially explained away as the result of a 'brain fart'.
Other usages
Fart has been used to name cocktails, an example being a 'Duck fart', playing on the humorous reference to flatulence—an example of toilet humour. It has also been used in the term 'fart sack', military slangMilitary humor
Military humor is humor based on stereotypes of military life. Military humor portrays a wide range of characters and situations in the armed forces...
for a bed or sleeping bag
Sleeping bag
A sleeping bag is a protective "bag" for a person to sleep in, essentially a blanket that can be closed with a zipper or similar means, and functions as a bed in situations where a bed is unavailable . Its primary purpose is to provide warmth and thermal insulation...
. A 'nun's fart' is a French term for a type of sweet dessert sprinkled with sugar.
Queef
Vaginal flatulenceVaginal flatulence
Vaginal flatulence is an emission or expulsion of air from the vagina that may occur during or after sexual intercourse or during other sexual acts, stretching or exercise. The sound is somewhat comparable to flatulence from the anus but does not involve waste gases and thus often has no specific...
(also known as queef) is an emission or expulsion of air from the vagina
Vagina
The vagina is a fibromuscular tubular tract leading from the uterus to the exterior of the body in female placental mammals and marsupials, or to the cloaca in female birds, monotremes, and some reptiles. Female insects and other invertebrates also have a vagina, which is the terminal part of the...
that may occur during or after sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...
or (less often) during other sexual acts, stretching or exercise.