So I'm Currently Rereading Lolita And, In It, The Word "crepitate" Is Used. I Wasn't Sure If It Had Multiple

so i'm currently rereading Lolita and, in it, the word "crepitate" is used. i wasn't sure if it had multiple meanings, so i googled it.

now, i don't know about you, but when i type a word like "crepitate" into the search bar, i don't really expect "fart" to appear in any of the top results, and yet:

i was disappointed to learn that there isn't a classification system for farts, but, rather, you can buy a CD featuring a fart competition called The Original Crepitation Contest that Amazon reviewers assure me is comedy gold. okay. mystery solv--

hang on.

this also came up. Google is presenting it as fact.

Google is telling me that on May 16th, in the year of our lord 1972, a man farted for 1/3 of a second at a register of 194 dB.

according to the National Hearing Conservation Association, that is the loudest possible sustained sound. when a sound reaches that decibel, it no longer travels through the air, but moves it. it only comes from things like volcanic eruptions and can cause organ damage.

call me a Doubting Thomas if you must, but i just don't think this is true.

i just don't think anyone recorded a man farting so hard that it created a literal shockwave, blowing his asshole clean off and probably killing everyone around him, because i just don't think a guy did that, and i especially don't think that, if he did, his government name was Alvin Meshits.

at this point i'd totally forgotten i was trying to read literary classic Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov and instead started searching for the origin of Mr. Meshits, fart terrorist. from what i can tell, someone on Reddit just randomly shared it to r/todayilearned and Google went "yeah, this seems true" and now it's just out there.

now someone might stumble upon it and go "wow, that's crazy" and live the rest of their life believing a fart erupted at such force it likely blew its own progenitor to creamed corn.

i don't think Madeline, Texas is even a real place.