Do you remember that line from a traditional Christmas song, ‘… and a partridge in a pear tree…’? Does it make you feel all festive and wish for snow?

Well, next time you sing it, TRY not to laugh out loud, because you’re about to learn the hilarious history of the partridge’s name…

There is a verb in French, péter, which makes all schoolchildren across the Channel giggle and titter like mad. It means ‘to break wind’ — in other words, to ‘trump’, ‘do a windipop’, ‘pop’ or, all right, ‘fart’.

The ancient Greeks must have been a bit windy, too, because both péter and ‘partridge’ go back to their word for farting. We think it’s because the whirring sound of the birds’ wings reminded the Romans of what some people like to call ‘trouser burps’.

(I vividly remember that, in my school dictionary, a ‘fart’ was defined as ‘a minor explosion between the legs’. I think dictionaries have moved on a bit since then — go and check yours to see for yourself!)

 

Did you know …

… that the word fart is over 700 years old? It was probably meant to represent the sound made by windy medieval folks! Can you make up your own words that sound to you, er, like a fart?