Shouting distance is, unsurprisingly, the
distance that a person's
shout can carry.
Colloquially, it is the distance that
embarrassing rumours can be communicated with a single inspired burst of vocal communication. As in, "right away, everybody within shouting distance
knew that
Johnny had
the Clap." The distance varies with the
lung power of the shouter and many circumstances of the environment. On the one hand, a mere
shout-out can be spoken very quietly and yet still reach all the way around the
planet, if it is said into a
microphone during a
TV broadcast. For untelevised
events, and those otherwise lacking in
electronic enhancement a shout let out on the bank of a body of calm water will carry much farther than over land, possibly for miles. This is because of the fundamental nature of sound, as a
vibration of
particles in the
air that gets more diffuse (and therefore harder to make out) over distance, especially when other sounds interfere with that vibration. Over still water, the vibrations are
reflected, rather than being
absorbed. It also surely helps for the shouter to have the big
lungs of an
opera diva. Even the loudest shouter may not be able to cover more than ten feet if shouting in a crowded dance club, or at a rock concert (where everyone is already shouting).
Shouting distance also increases with the
acuteness of the
hearing of the person the shout is directed to. You can add a pretty big
multiplier if the recipient of your shout is a
wolf (or the wolf's often
friendly little
cousin, the
dog). Wolves can hear each other howl from tens of miles away. One wonders whether, in those howls, they are transmitting some
blushworthy
tidbits about their fellows. As in, "right away, everybody within shouting distance knew that
Balto had
fleas."
The world champions for shouting distance, though, are
blue whales, whose
whale song can carry for hundreds of miles. To be fair, their lungs are as big as some of our
houses, and we are not nearly as good at singing
underwater. And right away, all the whales within shouting distance know that Orca tried to mate with an
oil tanker.