The Worst Sounds
1. Vomiting
2. Microphone feedback
3. Babies crying
That is according to the research of Trevor Cox of Salford University. discussed here in the New York Times. More info is at the project’s website. You can also listen to and rate the sounds. I didn’t, but I get to hear #3 often enough.
Comments
i once read that our military determined the most excruciating sound in the world was babies crying--except in reverse. then they used high powered speakers to blast that sound into caves in Afghanistan to drive out al qaeda.
Posted by: GC | June 24, 2008 07:06 PM
Actually, all three sounds are heard during my lectures.
Posted by: Phil Klinkner | June 24, 2008 08:59 PM
The Irish accordian.
I doodle on a recorder and an ocarina from time to time to the dismay of my wife. But I recall as a child in the late 1930s when we lived in the Roxbury section of Boston, being awakened on a Sunday morning by a neighbor's playing the Irish accordian. I wonder how a band would sound that included the Irish accordian, bagpipe, tin whistle, jaw's harp, recorder and ocarina. A one and a two ....
Posted by: Shag from Brookline | June 25, 2008 04:52 AM
And I heard #1 on a fateful November 2007 evening in DC...har har
Posted by: Dan Tarrant | June 26, 2008 11:26 AM
Christina Aguilera in mid-melismic wail.
Posted by: Billiam | June 26, 2008 10:08 PM
Dan: I believe you have some cell phone images to go with the audio, do you not?
Posted by: Chris | June 30, 2008 09:24 PM