Unable to solve this mystery on my own, I wanted to reach out to someone who has to make these kinds of calls for a living, so I contacted children’s book author Artie Bennett, who has written books like The Butt Book and Belches, Burps and Farts-Oh My!. The only problem here is that there is a great deal of diversity in the no-vowel options, so they can’t all be correct, right? Ergo, this probably means that the sound of a fart cannot be represented with letters at all, or, if it can, it should be something unpronounceable. Yes, there are a variety of ways to imitate a fart sound with your mouth, but you can’t really speak a fart. Then there’s a whole mess of ones without vowels, like “PFFT,” “PBBBBT,” “THPPTPHTPHPHHPH” and “BRRRT.” These, to me, are a good deal more credible because you cannot pronounce many of them, which is also true of a fart. And “FRAAA” sounds like the beginning of my Starbucks order as I’m trying to yell “ Frappuccino ” at the drive-thru speaker, but it’s not a sound that any of my other bodily holes can make. “BRAAA” is what a moron calls his bros, it’s not what my asshole says after I’ve enjoyed a hearty order from Taco Bell. I mean, maybe the “P” sound is present in a fart, but “FRAAA” and “BRAAA” certainly aren’t there. To me, these sound effects more closely capture the untamed spirit of a fart, yet there’s one problem: I don’t hear any of those sounds in an actual fart. These are better than “TOOT” as they seem loud, sometimes violent and also unexpected. Then there are things like “BRAAAP” and “FRAAAP” and the like. “Toot” is something that a model train might do as it crosses over an adorable plastic bridge, but it hardly captures the proper rip from a rather feisty bit of flatulence. This isn’t entirely personal, though I also find “TOOT” - as well as “POOT” - to be an unsatisfying sound. While I understood why the vulgarities I’d hear during my secret, late-night viewings of South Park were off-limits, the banning of “fart” hardly seemed justified. See, the word “fart” was banned in my house when I was a kid, and I was only permitted to say the word “toot” in its place. Then there’s “TOOT,” which is a word that I have particular disdain for. There would never be a need for “BRAAAP” or “PBBBT” because everyone would just use “FART!” So, because so many other fart sound effect options exist, it must mean that “FART!” is an insufficient means by which to describe a fart. After all, if “FART!” sounded perfectly like a fart there would be no other spellings of the sound whatsoever. Using “FART!” is nice because it leaves no room for ambiguity, but, if you take this into more serious consideration, there’s just no way it’s enough. Why? Well, not only have many comics simply used “FART!” as a sound effect, but the word is also, probably, an onomatopoeia (though, given the fact that the word is about 700 or 800 years old, it’s hard to trace its exact origin ). One of these spellings just has to be right, but which one is it!?įirst of all, there’s a really compelling argument to be made for simply the word “FART!” as the proper fart sound effect. In other words, it’s complete fucking chaos and I can’t take it any longer. Sometimes, the sound effect is “TOOT” or “POOT” or something like that, and sometimes it’s more like “FRAAAP” or “BRAAAP.” Then there’s completely unpronounceable things like “THPPTPHTPHPHHPH.” Every time I see a character fart in a comic book or comic strip, it’s always something different. All I’m looking for is a little consistency.
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