The Universal Language

English? Most important language, maybe, but universal? No. Chinese? Nah. Spanish? Hey! Nope. Esperanto? Huh? Get outta here. The universal language is…farts. Now hear me out 🙂

What other language or sound or noise is understandable, relatable, enjoyable (ok, that one could be debated) by everyone across the world? I guess it’s more skewed towards men, but still you know what I mean. If you are among strangers and someone sheepishly lets one out, everyone smiles. If you are in a foreign land and you cut one, everyone around you understands you and knows what just happened.

A few fun anecdotes come to mind to help illustrate my point:

1. I was playing basketball one day and it was just a regular game. All of a sudden, someone made a cut and poot! Out came an unexpected noise and he just fell over in place cracking up. He was dribbling the ball, no less, and as soon as the deed was done, it was all over. He was incapacitated from laughter for a good minute and everyone else also got a chuckle.
   
   
2. Dumb and Dumber was my favorite movie as a kid — and sadly still remains my favorite movie as an adult. Anyways, one of my favorite scenes was the X-Lax scene where Harry’s on the toilet. I’m sure this scene figured into my decision to buy a CD called Pull My Finger when I was about 16. Ninety nine tracks of nothing but farts. I got my brother to pay for half of it too!
   
   
3. Farsi (Persian) is such a sophisticated language that it distinguishes between different types of farts. This makes for some fun sentences with rich meaning. For example, a loud and harmless (i.e. not stinky) fart is called a “gooz”. This also seems to be a common nickname among siblings, I have learned — none of mine, of course. The more potent and lethal variety of fart — i.e. silent but deadly — is called a “chos”. This is the one you want to stay away from. One interesting example is the Farsi word for popcorn — “chos-e-fil” — or an elephant’s stinky fart. I told you the language was colorful.

“I don’t always fart, but when I do…man, does it stink!”

4. Now this one is what brought up the whole subject in the first place. I went for a run last night on this new route where I go up and down a set of stairs — 325 steps each way. Anyways, I pass this guy on my way down and I don’t give him a second thought. In a few short moments, I will have learned that he also did not give me a second thought.

I make it down to the bottom of the stairs, turn around and start heading back up. I see the same guy a little further up the stairs. As I get closer to him, he just stops in his tracks and, facing away from me, lets out a good-sized fart. A few things of note: 1) He had his headphones on, so maybe he was oblivious to his surroundings, 2) he probably thought, ok the coast is clear. That runner already passed me and there’s no one in front of me…let it rip!, and 3) maybe he just didn’t care who was around!

I passed him about a second after he blessed the atmosphere with his contribution. I turned around and gave him a smile and instinctively said “Boker tov!”, which means “good morning” even though it was 6pm and dark already. This just added to the hilarity of the situation on both sides. The guy farts, realizes someone is right next to him when he does so, and that crazy person (me) then smiles at him and says “Good morning!” even though it’s night. The thought of this bizarre interaction carried me up the rest of the stairs with a goofy smile on my face.

So, what’s the moral of the story? Nothing really, other than the fact that everyone understands and appreciates a fart. Even if you don’t like it or think it’s gross , you still appreciate it. It can lighten the mood (hello “gooz”!) or exacerbate a situation (I’m talking to you “chos”). It’s powerful, and everyone can speak that same language, regardless of where they’re from.