A Texas listener says her infant daughter is soothed by white noise. She’s curious as to why it’s called white noise instead of gray noise. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “White Noise”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, my name is Karen. I’m from Flower Mound, Texas.
And I was just wondering why they call it white noise.
Is there a particular reason it’s called white noise?
Do you think it should be called something else, Karen?
I thought maybe gray noise, because it’s kind of in between.
It’s not anything exact or specific.
-huh.
-huh.
What do you know about light, Karen?
Not a lot.
Oh, okay. Because I think there’s an answer in there somewhere.
-huh.
Yeah, you know how they have those pictures of white light going through a prism and then it changes into all the different colors of the rainbow?
It breaks into colors like that?
Yes.
It’s the same idea with white noise.
White noise is analogous to white light.
It’s all the noises all mixed in together.
Okay.
And if you want to get super technical about it, there are other kinds of noise that people who work professionally with noise,
There are all different kinds of phrases like that, like pink noise is white noise that’s been filtered a little bit and actually supposedly sounds a little bit more natural.
I thought that was techno music.
Oh, never mind.
I don’t think so.
What about the term acoustic perfume?
Do you know that one?
No.
Yeah, that’s another term for white noise.
Oh, really?
Because it’s kind of background noise.
It’s kind of the lay expression of white noise.
We often use white noise just to mean any kind of noise that you’re not really paying attention to that’s always around.
And that’s actually true white noise.
And so it’s kind of like acoustic perfume.
It’s just like a smell that’s kind of pervasive, and you don’t really notice until you think about it.
Interesting.
I like that.
So is there a gray noise?
You mentioned there’s pink noise.
I believe there is a gray noise.
Okay.
But, yeah, these are highly specialized terms.
But the one that has made it into common usage is white noise.
And I think it’s been around since the 1940s or so.
That’s what I think so, too.
Well, my daughter loves to listen to white noise.
It’s her favorite of the noises.
Oh, really?
You have an infant at home?
She’s a baby, and she’s comforted by it.
Yes.
My son is the same way.
We often would put on the air filter or even the hair dryer,
And we would just lull him to sleep.
Oh, really?
How old’s your daughter?
She’s five months.
Oh, five months.
So do you have a white noise machine, or do you just turn on the TV?
Well, it’s one of the clock radio things that make different noises,
But the one she likes the best kind of sounds like wigs, but we just call it white noise.
Very nice.
Maybe it’s a type of white noise or something.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, it’s just all the different frequencies mixed together.
Thank you so much for calling, Karen.
Thank you.
All right.
Bye-bye.
Gray noise.
That one’s easy.
I just looked it up while we were talking here.
It’s a lot of high-pitched noise and a lot of low-pitched noise, but very little in the middle.
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