Evidently, farting is funny. There are fart jokes in ancient Roman murals. We all know who Shakespeare is because 60 percent of his writing was baffling language, and the other 40 percent were fart jokes your English teacher had to explain to you. Fart jokes are mighty.

I don’t understand the appeal, to be honest, though I think it may be the taboo nature of farts, mixed in with “there but for the grace of God go I.” Farts smell really bad, and there’s something funny about being people being disgusted.

Some people are really proud of their farts, and some people don’t ever admit to having them. But the fact is, we all fart. Kim Kardashian farts. And since it’s a shared experience over the world, a vocabulary is going to be built around them. And that brings me to my question.

You know how some farts just explode, real attention-grabbers? Other farts are the opposite, hissing out of your anus with nobody the wiser. The problem is, these are also the most fragrant, so what do you call them? Silent-but-deadly? This is the one I hear the most. I understand the appeal of the gag, where it’s like a ninja of discomfort, but it’s not as good as the other one. I learned of this one in middle school, and I loved it for its sheer poetry: silent-but-violent.

I never hear it anymore, even though it is the superior of the two by every means. Silent-but-deadly describes poison gas, but silent-but-violent knocks you around a bit, gives you a bloody nose. And it rhymes.

When you were a kid and the scent of a microwaved dead skunk marinated in used gym socks comes from the bowels of someone in this room or elevator car, what do you call it?

Silent-but-deadly?

Or silent-but-violent?