The reason why there are so many ways to spell a fart sound is because there are just so many kinds of farts. There’s such a variety of farts out there that it would probably be improper to try to pin it down to just one spelling.”Īs soon as these words left Bennett’s mouth, it suddenly all made sense and I realized that the answer was in front of me all along. But as Bennett explains to me, “There’s really no right way or wrong way to describe a fart because there’s a whole world of farts out there - explosive ones, silent-but-deadly ones, ones that flutter like a sail. 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. 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.

Spell the sound of a gunshot