An Australian man has broken the Guinness world record for the loudest ever shout to be recorded.
This record was broken by 58 year old, Joseph McGrail-Bateup, who yelled the word "now", which was recorded at an ear splitting 122.4 decibels. He beat the previous record which was held by Northern Ireland teacher, Annalisa Flanagan, who yelled the word "quiet" at 121.7 decibels in 1994.
According to reports in Sky News, Mr McGrail-Bateup revealed to reporters including CNN, that it took him seven attempts to break the record, adding that his voice was "shot" in the days which followed.
"There's no way that you can actually practise for it," he said. "You have to just keep it for the day, especially with the world record attempt".
He said that he had experimented with different words, before settling on the word "now", which he duly belted out at a radio studio in May.
Sound uses a logarithmic scale and is not linear in progression: The subjective loudness doubles after every increase of 10db. The RNID say that most people experience pain when shouting at 130 decibels (about the level of a jet taking off 100m away).
Mr McGrail-Bateup is an air conditioning cleaner and honorary town crier, whose record breaking shout is at the same level of a clap of thunder, pneumatic drill, or a chainsaw. It was recorded by a professional acoustic engineer in front of witnesses, before being confirmed by Guinness on Friday.
The Australian had become town crier for Canberra in 2017, and makes announcements at local events, which he calls a "bit of fun".
In 2019, Mr McGrail-Bateup had set another record when he shot 10 archery arrows in 60.03 seconds. His record was eventually beaten nine months later by a seven year old boy by over 11 seconds.
