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written by Sam Greenspan

A scientific study ranked the 11 worst sounds in the world. I also made a list with very different picks.

As I continue my transition from happenin’ young dude to housebound old man, my frequency and variety of complaints inevitably must escalate. Today’s target: Noises.

I recently got into a little thing with my wife over her method of eating dinner. Specifically, the way she would drag the tips of the prongs of her fork along the bottom of a bowl to get those last traces of feta cheese or any other non-vegetables out of her salad. (No one ever seems quite that determined to get every last bit of lettuce.) She thought I was insane for cringing repeatedly at the noise. I said it was awful. And because I felt the need to prove it was, empirically, an annoying sound, I tried to find scientific evidence.

I got close. Very close.

A 2012 study out of the University of Newcastle in the U.K. found the worst sounds in the world. (Conspicuously absent: Jim Carrey’s “most annoying sound in the world” from Dumb and Dumber.)

Here are their findings:

11 | A fork on a bottle

10 | An electric drill

9 | A baby crying

8 | Squealing brakes on a bicycle

7 | A power saw

6 | A woman screaming

5 | Nails on a chalkboard

4 | A ruler on a bottle

(I don’t really get this one.)

3 | Chalk on a chalkboard

2 | A fork on a glass

1 | A knife on a bottle

So close to “fork on a bowl.” But not quite there.

But this study is hardly authoritative. It featured brain scans from only 16 test subjects, and a set of only 74 noises to choose from (some of which were things like “water flowing” and “a baby laughing”).

So here’s a counter proposal: My picks for the 11 most annoying/worst sounds in the world. No brain scans, just opinion. And nothing involving something called a “chalkboard” made my list, much like the sounds of “rewinding a tape in the VCR,” “the modem connecting to America Online,” and “a long answering machine message that features a child singing” were also excluded.

11 | Someone trying, repeatedly, to cough up mucus in their throat

10 | A persistent cricket chirping in the house

I just spent far too much money on an exterminator, all because of a cricket living deep under my fridge who made the downstairs portion of my house unbearable at night.

9 | A human bone breaking

8 | A random person in a public bathroom moving loud, splashy bowels

7 | Sudden, loud feedback

The kind from electronics or microphones, not people critiquing you. Although that’s also pretty grating to listen to, come to think of it.

6 | A dentist drill carving up a tooth

5 | A baby wailing

Seven months ago, this wouldn’t have ranked in my top 100; didn’t bother me, even on a plane. Now that I have a baby, I see how it cuts into one’s soul.

4 | An erratic snorer

If you just establish a snoring rhythm, that’s fine. But when snoring follows no discernible cadence and occasionally sounds like you’re gasping for breath and dying, how can anyone else sleep?

3 | The default iPhone alarm clock noise

It makes me angry every morning, and whenever I hear it in public I seize up.

2 | The tips of a fork’s prongs scraping a plate or bowl

1 | 2 Broke Girls