Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 02:48, 25 March 2007

Template:Two other uses

Fart is an English word which refers 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 conservative circles. Fart can be used as a noun or a verb.

Usage history

Early usage

A well known usage of the fart in Middle English occurs in Chaucer's "Miller's Tale" (one of the Canterbury Tales). In the tale (which is told by a bawdy miller as a group of pilgrims travel to Canterbury), the character Nicholas hangs his buttocks out of a window and farts in the face of his rival Absolon, who is instead expecting a kiss. Absolon is humiliated by this gesture. Nicholas then attempts to repeat the prank, and Absolon then sears Nicholas's rear with a red-hot poker. The Oxford English Dictionary gives Chaucer's usage (1386) as its earliest citation for the noun form of the word, though it provides an earlier (1250) citation for the verb form.

The fart is frequently available (often through puns on the word "wind") as a comparison for undesirable speech or writing, as in these lines from an epistle by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester:

Perhaps ill Verses, ought to be confined,

In mere good Breeding, like unsavory wind.
Were Reading forced, I should be apt to think
Men might no more write scurvily than stink.
But 'tis your choice, whether you'll read or no;
If likewise of your smelling it were so,
I'd Fart, just as I write, for my own ease,

Nor should you be concerned unless you please.

Modern usage

By the early twentieth century, the word fart had come to be considered rather vulgar in most English-speaking cultures. For a long time, the word was forbidden from the public airwaves in the United States. While not one of George Carlin's original seven dirty words, he noted in a later routine that the word fart (along with turd and twat), ought to be added to "the list" of words that were not acceptable (for broadcast) in any context (as opposed to words such as ass, cock or pussy which have non-offensive meanings).

With the rise of cable television and changing social mores in general, the word fart is (in 2006) frequently heard in the broadcast media. It is also now found in such places as children's literature, such as the Walter the Farting Dog series of children's books. While still considered impolite in some social contexts, much of the stigma surrounding the word has disappeared.

Etymology

The word "fart" came via a supposed Anglo-Saxon feortan or feortian from Proto-Indo-European: compare Greek περδομαι and Avestic prd.

See also

• Flatulence
• Censorship
• Euphemism
• Four-letter word
• Profanity
• Seven dirty words
• The Gas We Pass
• Le Pétomane
• Mr. Methane

References

1. "This nicholas anon leet fle a fart, / As greet as it had been a thonder-dent" (The Miller's Tale 3806-3807; available online at etext.lib.virginia.edu).
2. Oxford English Dictionary online (http://dictionary.oed.com): entries for fart, n. and fart, v.
3. Rochester, "An Epistolary Essay from M. G. to O. B. upon Their Mutual Poems," The Complete Poems of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, ed. David M. Vieth (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968.

• Fecal Matters in Early Modern Literature and Art: Studies in Scatology. J Persels, R Ganim - 2004 (Chap. 1: The Honorable Art of Farting in Continental Renaissance)

• Profanity
• Flatulence