Saturday, July 26, 2008

Friday is for Flatulence

As you do, I just typed into the search engine of my Libronix Digital Library the word 'fart'.

Douglas Stuart's Word commentary on Amos returned the following bibliographical reference

Fart, G. "The Language of Amos, Popular or Cultic?" VT 16 (1966) 312–24.

Poor bloke, I bet he had an interesting time at school. It makes me wonder what the 'G' stood for? 'Great'? 'Gaseous'? - both of which would have made for hours of playground fun. And if we want to be utilitarian in our ethics (greatest happiness for the greatest number), there is a case for making it morally necessary that G. Fart should be so named – for the happiness of all of his school 'friends'.

Oh yes, Tübingen library also has the following item:

Weber, Susanne L., Surface gravity waves and turbulent bottom friction: the evolution of the wind-wave spectrum in shallow seas, Utrecht, Rijksuniv., Diss., 1989

Which resulted from searching the great Tübingen theological resources library for 'wind' and 'bottom'.

As one does.

Don't look at me like that!

Actually, Tübingen library yields far worse. I also found a 1985 Microfilm document (Beeinflussung des Trunkenheitsgrades durch kombinierte Alkohol- und Medikamenteneinnahme) penned by a certain Peter Schitter. Either he was bullied at school for that or he ought to have been (utilitarianism).

4 Comments:

At 7/26/2008 10:37 AM, Blogger Rev Tony B said...

Except that if there is a verb "schitten" it probably doesn't have the same effect in a German playground. There again, most German verbs sound as if they could have a lot of effect in a German playground...

Reminds me of the endless hours of fun we had when I was in junior school, looking up "Pump" in the school dictionary to laugh at the definition "a small explosion between the legs." Really. How sophisticated we were...

 
At 7/27/2008 6:34 AM, Blogger Charles Augustine Rivera said...

No shame in this. Even Milton the Puritan was not above employing the language of flatulence in epic verse, although it is a simile describing the lake of fire in hell. Nevertheless, the imagined fart/volcanic explosion is of the most violent sort ("singed bottom")

As when the force
Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side
Of thund'ring Etna, whose combustible
And fueled entrails thence conceiving fire,
Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singed bottom all involved
With stench and smoke. (Paradise Lost I.230-237)

 
At 7/27/2008 11:45 PM, Blogger Nijay K. Gupta said...

I know Eugene Boring often pokes fun at his own name.

 
At 7/28/2008 5:19 PM, Anonymous brian said...

you are so weird....

 

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