On "Tanked,"

[Laurence Horn]

On May 2, 2012, at 9:20 PM, Ben Zimmer wrote:

> On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 8:33 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>> 
>> a prime-time Animal Planet program, a woman laughingly says,
>> 
>> "Leave it to *my* brother to _fart_ and depart!"
>> 
>> Farting is a kind of hobby for Peter Griffin, The Family Guy of
>> animated-cartoon fame, but this is the ftrst time that I've *noticed*
>> anyone saying "fart" for real. Until I read that thread the other day,
>> I didn't know that it was of interest, if someone said "fart" on the
>> tube.
> 
> On last week's "30 Rock," a sketch in the show-within-a-show was
> called "Prince William and Prince: Time Traveling Fart Detectives."
> 
> First time I recall hearing the word on TV was when Howard Stern
> showed up at MTV's VMA Awards in 1992 as "Fartman."
> 
Maybe so, but if Chaucer had been able to produce a miniseries of the Canterbury Tales, I'm sure he would have sneaked farts in--
(1390)    Chaucer Miller's Tale (Hengwrt) (2003) l. 618   This Nicholas anoon leet fle a fart.
--by name.  

(And we know that _fart_, cognate with "petard" and "partridge" ['so-called from the sound it makes when flushed'--heh-heh], tracks back to PIE *prd, so it's a word with history on its side, butt of humor or not.)

LH

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