Editing Fart (word) (section)

===Historical examples===
[[File:Newton Bull farts G3.jpg|thumb|right|220px|[[John Bull]] emits an explosive bout of flatulence at a poster of [[George III]] as an outraged [[William Pitt the Younger]] admonishes him. [[Richard Newton (caricaturist)|Newton]]'s etching was probably a comment on Pitt's threat (realized the following month) to suspend [[habeas corpus]].]]
The word ''fart'' in [[Middle English]] occurs in "[[Sumer Is Icumen In]]", where one sign of summer is "bucke uerteþ" (the [[deer|buck]] farts). It appears in several of [[Geoffrey Chaucer]]'s ''[[Canterbury Tales]]''. In "[[The Miller's Tale]]", Absolon has already been tricked into kissing Alison's buttocks when he is expecting to kiss her face. Her boyfriend Nicholas hangs his [[buttocks]] out of a window, hoping to trick Absolon into kissing his buttocks in turn and then farts in the face of his rival. In "[[The Summoner's Tale]]", the friars in the story are to receive the smell of a fart through a twelve-spoked wheel.

In the early modern period, the word ''fart'' was not considered especially vulgar; it even surfaced in literary works. For example, [[Samuel Johnson]]'s ''[[A Dictionary of the English Language]]'', published in 1755, included the word.  Johnson defined it{{vague|date=August 2016}} with two poems, one by [[Jonathan Swift]], the other by [[John Suckling (poet)|Sir John Suckling]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Evans |first=Ron |title=Coming Home: Saskatchewan Remembered |year=2002 |publisher=Dundurn Press Ltd |isbn=1-55002-379-9 |page=95}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.davyking.com/fart.htm |title=An ill wind. Some fascinating facts about farting |publisher=Davyking.com |date=c. 1985 |access-date=2010-11-12 |archive-date=2013-05-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130527145100/http://www.davyking.com/fart.htm |url-status=dead}}</ref>

Benjamin Franklin prepared [[Fart Proudly|an essay on the topic]] for the Royal Academy of Brussels in 1781 urging scientific study. In 1607, a group of [[Members of Parliament]] had written a ribald poem entitled ''The Parliament Fart'', as a symbolic protest against the conservatism of the [[House of Lords]] and the king, [[James I of England|James I]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Marotti |first=Arthur |title=Manuscript, print, and the English renaissance lyric |url=https://archive.org/details/manuscriptprinte00maro |url-access=registration |year=1995 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=0-8014-8238-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/manuscriptprinte00maro/page/113 113]}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Curtis |first=Polly |title=Ode to fart gets airing at last |date= 2005-06-23 |newspaper=Guardian |location=London |url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2005/jun/23/research.highereducation |access-date=2010-11-12}}</ref>