Farts, a Brief Tootorial
January 29, 2022 12:07 PM   Subscribe

Question: What is the maximum speed of a fart? What causes barking spider plumes? Need a bespoke air biscuit? Or maybe you want to turn that text into Morse toots? And what on earth is the reason for the Invisible College of Experimental Flatology?

Via Web Curios. (Look, I don't know either. It made me laugh!)
posted by MonkeyToes (22 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
Question: What is the maximum speed of a fart?

European or North American?
posted by chavenet at 12:11 PM on January 29, 2022 [22 favorites]


And what on earth is the reason for the Invisible College of Experimental Flatology

I assume it's because visible ones are the province of Experimental Shartology.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:31 PM on January 29, 2022 [13 favorites]


Mom, fart jokes are funny.
posted by whatevernot at 12:42 PM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]


Great post, can’t wait to rip through these
posted by armoir from antproof case at 12:50 PM on January 29, 2022 [8 favorites]


The Morse code link is pretty good. And yes, I'm intellectually 12 years old.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:51 PM on January 29, 2022


Morse toots?! Arse code, surely.
posted by chavenet at 12:58 PM on January 29, 2022 [5 favorites]


Gives a new meaning to the term "booty call"...
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:05 PM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


Was gonna do a Windfuckers joke, but I don't have the energy


I did write a short story about a sentient flatus once
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 1:31 PM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


I remember an SNL skit about ghost hunters, and in the infrared camera shot, you see Will Ferrell's character visibly fart. Astonished, I turned to Dr. Indexy and said something like, "Wait--did they just come up with an entirely new kind of fart joke?" "Wow! You're right. I think they did!"
posted by indexy at 1:39 PM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]


Anyone else disappointed Gary's only travel at a max velocity of .22mph?

I was thinking they'd be like a sneeze
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 3:02 PM on January 29, 2022


Reminds me of the Letterkenny FartBook episode
posted by phigmov at 3:12 PM on January 29, 2022 [4 favorites]


Knowing the speed of farts is good and all that, but can one reachlift-off, if it's on a treadmill?
posted by mightshould at 3:32 PM on January 29, 2022


My housemate has a cat has a cat that's adopted me, and she's a grumpy cat and comes across as kind of cranky. The cranky and grumpy cat part is important. She's very good at making cranky meowing noises. She makes cranky noises even right after being nicely fed, and I spoil her something terrible with tins of salmon or people-grade food. It's pretty much the only kind of noise or vocalization she does short of the heavy sighs and barely audible wails of disappointment she makes in her sleep. Yes, the cat has been to a vet recently. She's just a grumpy cat.

Thus this cat and I get along just fine and we're mostly on the same page.

The other day she was meowing grumpily for breakfast, and as I was stumbling around trying to wake up I ripped a huge morning fart in front of her. Not like *on* her or while we were curled up in bed or anything, just a few feet away and close enough to be audible.

The cat hissed at me and let out the most mournful, disappointed and drawn out yowl of disappointment I've heard from that cat in our few years together. It was even worse than the noises she makes when I accidentally step on her tail.

Of course I go to pieces laughing at all of this and it's more or less the highlight of my week.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk about farting in front of grumpy, judgemental pets.
posted by loquacious at 5:10 PM on January 29, 2022 [29 favorites]


Just today I learned that the partridge's name comes from the Greek "perdrix", "one who is farting", due to the deep fluttering noise the bird's wings make when it takes off.
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:32 PM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


Now I miss Wordshore.

Oh no.
posted by loquacious at 5:35 PM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]


I did write a short story about a sentient flatus once

That was also an episode of "Ren & Stimpy."
posted by panglos at 7:54 PM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


I did write a short story about a sentient flatus once

That was also an episode of "Ren & Stimpy."


Hell, that is also a fine explanation for about 2016 to 2020!
posted by loquacious at 8:09 PM on January 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


A+ title
posted by Going To Maine at 10:12 PM on January 29, 2022


Some time ago I encountered a list of about a dozen words which are used so frequently that they are preserved mostly unchanged in nearly every Indo-European language. I don’t remember the whole list, but I do remember: mama, papa, ewe, wheel, and fart.

Farts: the human condition.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 10:19 PM on January 29, 2022


Farts: the human condition.

Obviously, you have never lived with a sleeping canid of size. As I recently told a friend on Facebook when the topic aired:

Just be glad you don't own an English or French bulldog. One poot could clear a full banquet hall in seconds. I mean, people would get trampled. Those not so little guys are walking violations of the Geneva Conventions on chemical and biological warfare.

I am not kidding. Our bulldog was English, which are dumb as a post, great hearted and potentially lethal in a small room -- all at the same time. Frenchies at least are of a smaller megatoontage. But in my experience the same is true with any dog. It's just that any pup with the word bull in their proper name packs a much heavier throw weight in their silos.
posted by y2karl at 12:14 AM on January 30, 2022


oh, sure, blame the dog
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 5:19 AM on January 30, 2022 [5 favorites]


No, blame the Bulldog.

Also, on topic is the letter Benjamin Franklin wrote to the Royal Academy of Brussels entitled Fart Proudly in which he quite tongue-in-cheekedly suggested they should find a way to perfume the human flatus so as not to offend one's companions in social gatherings.

What I did not know until I Googled Ben Franklin on farts is that someone has allegedly actually done this and is marketing tablets for the purpose. I shall not link to that but rather leave it to other horrible workers here.*

*...as Arthur Rimbaud once wrote to George Izambard on another topic:

Let him die as he leaps through unheard of and unnamable things: other horrible workers will come; they will begin from the horizons where the other collapsed!

posted by y2karl at 8:55 AM on January 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


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