Shit is usually considered a
vulgarity and
profanity in
Modern English. As a noun it refers
to
fecal matter (
excrement) and as a verb it means to
defecate or defecate in; in the plural ("the
shits") it means
diarrhea.
Shite is also a common variant in
British English .
As a
slang term, it has many meanings, including:
nonsense,
foolishness,
something of little value or quality, trivial and usually boastful
or inaccurate talk, or a contemptible person. To shit, in slang, is
to talk nonsense, or to attempt to deceive .
Etymology
The word is likely derived from
Old
English, having the nouns
scite (dung, attested only
in place names) and
scitte (diarrhoea), and the verb
scītan (to defecate, attested only in
bescītan,
to cover with excrement); eventually it morphed into
Middle English schītte (excrement),
schyt (diarrhoea) and
shiten (to defecate), and
it is virtually certain that it was used in some form by
preliterate
Germanic tribes at the
time of the
Roman Empire. The word may
be further traced to Proto-Germanic *
skit-, and ultimately
to
Proto-Indo-European
*
skheid-. The word has several
cognates in modern
Germanic languages, such as
German Scheisse,
Dutch schijt,
Swedish skit,
Icelandic skítur,
Norwegian skitt etc.
Ancient Greek had 'skor' (gen. 'skatos' hence
'scato-'), from Proto-Indo-European *
sker-, which is
likely unrelated.
False etymology
A popular belief is that the word
shit originated as an
acronym for "Ship High In Transit", referring to the apparent need
to stow manure well above the water line when transporting it by
ship. This has been shown to be a myth.
Usage
The word
shit (or sometimes
shite in Scotland,
Northern Ireland, Ireland, Northern England and Wales) is used by
English speakers, but it is usually avoided in formal speech.
Substitutes for the word
shit in English include
sugar and
shoot.
In the word's literal sense, it has a rather small range of common
usages. An unspecified or collective occurrence of feces is
generally
shit or
some shit; a single deposit of
feces is sometimes
a shit or
a piece of shit, and
to defecate is
to shit, or
to take a shit. While
it is common to speak of shit as existing in
a pile,
a
load,
a hunk and other quantities and configurations,
such expressions flourish most strongly in the figurative. For
practical purposes, when actual defecation and excreta are spoken
of in English, it is either through creative euphemism or with a
vague and fairly rigid literalism.
"Shit" can also be combined with other words to denote the type of
feces one has. For instance, "Snake shit" describes feces that are
long and slender in shape, thus reminiscent of a snake's
appearance. "Shapeepee" or "Shit pee pee" is another word for
diarrhea, or can be used to describe feces
that are almost entirely of liquid composition.
Shit carries an encompassing variety of figurative
meanings, explained in the following sections.
Vague noun
Shit can be used as a generic mass noun similar to
stuff; for instance,
This show is funny shit or
This test is hard shit, or
That was stupid shit.
These three usages (with
funny,
hard, and
stupid or another
synonym of
stupid) are heard most commonly in the United States. Note
that
shit is both a positive and negative thing in these
examples,
shit being apparently very funny (a positive
thing) and in the second and third examples very hard (as in,
difficult - a negative thing to be) or very stupid. Note also that
in a phrase like this, the speaker doesn't include the term
as; saying that something is
as funny as shit
would be taken as a negative statement (
shit not being a
very funny thing to be). A similar usage is
the shit,
which indicates great praise or approval; for example, the phrase
This show was the shit indicates major approval from the
speaker of a show.
In
Get your shit together! the word
shit may
refer to some set of personal belongings or tools, or to one's
wits, composure, or attention to the task at hand.
He doesn't
have his shit together suggests he is failing rather broadly,
with the onus laid to multiple personal shortcomings, rather than
bad luck or outside forces.
To
shoot the shit is to have a friendly but pointless
conversation, as in "Come by my place some time and we'll shoot the
shit."
Surprise
To
shit oneself, or to
shit bricks can be used to
refer to surprise or fear. The latter form can be commonly seen in
a form of
internet meme which goes by
the phrase
when you see it, you will shit bricks, used in
connection with an image of a busy scene with an often unnoticed
laughing face or disturbing object which is hard to see until you
study the picture.
The word can also be used to represent anger, as in
Jim is
totally going to flip his shit when he sees that we wrecked his
marriage.
Trouble
Shit can be used to denote trouble, by saying one is in
a lot of shit or
deep shit. It's common for
someone to refer to an unpleasant thing as
hard shit
(
You got a speeding ticket? Man, that's some hard
shit), but the phrase
tough shit is used as an
unsympathetic way of saying
too bad to whomever is having
problems (
You got arrested? Tough shit, man!) or
as a way of expressing to someone that they need to stop
complaining about something and just deal with it (Billy:
I got
arrested because of you! Tommy:
Tough shit, dude, you knew
you might get arrested when you chose to come with me.) Note
that in this case, as in many cases with the term,
tough
shit is often said as a way of pointing out someone's fault in
his/her own current problem.
When the shit hits the fan is usually used to refer to a
specific time of confrontation or trouble, which requires decisive
action. This is often used in reference to combat situations and
the action scenes in movies, but can also be used for everyday
instances that one might be apprehensive about.
I don't want to
be here when the shit hits the fan! indicates that the speaker
is dreading this moment (which can be anything from an enemy attack
to confronting an angry parent or friend).
He's the one to turn
to when the shit hits the fan is an indication that the person
being talked about is dependable and will not run from trouble or
abandon their allies in tough situations. The concept of this
phrase is simple enough, as the actual substance striking the
rotating blades of a fan would cause a messy and unpleasant
situation (much like being in the presence of a
manure spreader). Whether or not this has
actually happened, or if the concept is simply feasible enough for
most people to imagine the result without needing it to be
demonstrated, is unknown. Another example might be the saying
shit rolls down hill which is particularly illustrating,
the consequences of putting your superiors in a bad position at
work. There are a number of anecdotes and jokes about such
situations, as the imagery of these situations is considered to be
funny. This is generally tied-in with the concept that disgusting
and messy substances spilled onto someone else are humorous.
Displeasure
Shit can comfortably stand in for the terms
bad
and
anything in many instances (
Dinner was good, but
the movie was shit. You're all mad at me, but I didn't do
shit!). A comparison can also be used, as in
Those pants
look like shit, or
This stuff tastes like shit. Many
usages are
idiomatic. The phrase,
I don't
give a shit denotes
indifference.
I'm shit out of luck usually refers to someone who is at
the end of their wits or who has no remaining viable options.
That little shit shot me in the ass, suggests a mischievous or contemptuous
person. Euphemisms such as
crap are not used in this
context.
The term
piece of shit is generally used to classify a
product or service as being sufficiently below the writer's
understanding of generally accepted quality standards to be of
negligible and perhaps even negative value.The term
piece of
shit has greater precision than
shit or
shitty in that
piece of shit identifies the low
quality of a specific component or output of a process without
applying a derogatory slant to the entire process. For example, if
one said
"The inner city youth orchestra has been a remarkably
successful initiative in that it has kept young people off the
streets after school and exposed them to culture and discipline,
thereby improving their self esteem and future prospects.
The fact that the orchestra's recent rendition of Tchaikovsky's
Manfred Symphony in B minor was pretty much a piece of shit should
not in any way detract from this." The substitution of
shit or
shitty for
pretty much a piece of
shit would imply irony and would therefore undermine the
strength of the statement.
Dominance
Shit can also be used to establish superiority over
another being. The most common phrase is
eat shit!
symbolizing the hatred toward the recipient. Some other personal
word may be added such as
eat my shit implying truly
personal connotations. As an aside, the above is actually a
contraction of the phrase
eat shit and die!. It is often
said without commas as a curse; they with the other party to
perform exactly those actions in that order. However, the term was
originally
Eat, Shit, and Die naming the three most basic
things humans have to do, and it is common among
soldiers.
Positive attitude
Interestingly, in slang, prefixing the article
the to
shit gives it a completely opposite definition, meaning
the best, as in
Altered
Beast is the shit, or
The Oregon Trail is the
shit. Again, other slang words of the same meaning,
crap for example, are not used in such locutions.
Shortening of bullshit
The expression
no shit? (a contraction of
no
bullshit?) is used in response to a statement that is
extraordinary or hard to believe. Alternatively the maker of the
hard-to-believe statement may add
no shit to reinforce the
sincerity or truthfulness of their statement, particularly in
response to someone expressing disbelief at their statement.
No
shit is also used sarcastically in response to a statement of
the obvious, as in
no shit, Sherlock.
In this form the word can also be used in phrases such as
don't
give me that shit or
you're full of shit. The term
full of shit is often used as an exclamation to charge
someone who is believed to be prone to dishonesty, exaggeration or
is thought to be "phoney" with an accusation. For example:
- "Oh, I'm sorry I forgot to invite you to the party, it was a
complete accident... But you really didn't miss anything
anyway.
- "You're full of shit! You had dozens of opportunities to invite
me. If you have a problem with me, why not say it!"
The word
bullshit also denotes false or insincere
discourse. (
Horseshit is roughly
equivalent, while
chickenshit
means
cowardly,
batshit
indicates a person is crazy, and
going apeshit indicates a person is entering a state
of high excitement or unbridled rage.).
Are you shitting
me!? is a question sometimes given in response to an
incredible assertion. An answer that reasserts the veracity of the
claim is,
I shit you not.
Emphasis
Perhaps the only constant
connotation
that
shit reliably carries is that its referent holds some
degree of emotional intensity for the speaker. Whether offense is
taken at hearing the word varies greatly according to listener and
situation, and is related to age and
social
class:
elderly speakers and those of (or
aspiring to) higher
socioeconomic
strata tend to use it more privately and selectively than younger
and more
blue-collar speakers.
Like the word
fuck,
shit is
often used to add emphasis more than to add meaning, for example,
shit! I was so shit-scared of that shithead that I
shit-talked him into dropping out of the karate match! The
term
to shit-talk connotes
bragging or exaggeration (whereas
to talk shit primarily
means
to gossip [about someone in a damaging way] or to
talk in a boastful way about things which are erroneous in nature),
but in such constructions as the above, the word
shit
often functions as an
interjection.
Unlike the word
fuck,
shit is not used
emphatically with
-ing or as an infix. For example;
I
lost the shitting karate match would be replaced with
...the fucking karate match. Similarly, while
in-fucking-credible is generally acceptable,
in-shitting-credible is not.
Drug usage
Shit itself can be a dysphemism or quasi-euphemism, with
many intoxicating or narcotic
drugs (notably
hashish and
heroin)
being referred to as
shit. A particularly excellent drug
may be described as
This is some good shit. To be
shitfaced is to be extremely
drunk. A
shitshow denotes a party or gathering during which
multiple people become intoxicated to the point of
incapacitation.
The verb “to shit”
The
preterite and
past participle of
shit are
attested as
shat,
shit, or
shitted,
depending on dialect and, sometimes, the rhythm of the sentence. In
the prologue of
The Canterbury
Tales,
shitten is used as the past participle;
however this form is very rare in modern English. In American
English
shit as a past participle is often correct, while
shat is generally acceptable and
shitted is
uncommon and missing from the
Random
House and
American
Heritage dictionaries.
Backronyms
The
backronym form "S.H.I.T." often
figures into jokes, like
Special High Intensity Training
(a well-known joke used in job applications),
Special Hot
Interdiction Team (a mockery on
SWAT),
Super Hackers Invitational Tournament, and any
college name that begins with an S-H (like
Sam
Houston Institute of Technology or
South Harmon Institute
of Technology in the 2006 film
Accepted or
Store High In Transit in
the 2006 film
Kenny).
South
Hudson Institute of Technology has sometimes been used to
describe the United States Military Academy
at West Point.[6469] It is an urban myth that Grampian Television was almost called
Scottish Highlands and Islands Television until they
realised what their acronym would be. The Simpsons' Apu was a
graduate student at
Springfield Heights Institute of
Technology.
In polite company, sometimes the
backronym
Sugar Honey in Tea or
Sugar Honey Iced Tea is
used.
Usage in English media
Television
Recently the word has become increasingly acceptable on American
cable television and
satellite radio, which are not subject to
FCC regulation. In
other English-speaking countries, such as Canada, the United
Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Australia and New Zealand the
word is allowed to be used in
broadcast television by the regulative
councils of each area, as long as it is used in late hours when
young people are not expected to be watching.
United Kingdom
It is believed that the first person on British TV to say "shit"
was
John Cleese of the
Monty Python comedy troupe in the late
1960s, as he, himself, mentions in a eulogy to
Graham Chapman.
United States
"Shit" was one of the original "
Seven
Words You Can Never Say On TV", a comedy routine by American
Comedian
George Carlin. In the United
States, although the use of the word is censored on broadcast
network television (while its
synonym
crap is not usually subject to
censorship), the FCC permitted some exceptions. The October 14,
1999 episode of
Chicago Hope
is believed to be the first show (excluding
documentaries) on U.S. network television
to contain the word
shit in uncensored form. The word also
is used in a later
ER episode
"
On the Beach" by Dr.
Mark Greene, experiencing the final
stages of a deadly
brain tumor. Although
the episode was originally aired uncensored, the "shit" utterance
has since been edited out in syndicated reruns.
An episode of
South Park,
"
It Hits the Fan," originally aired
on June 20, 2001, was a parody of the hype over the
Chicago
Hope episode. "Shit" is used 162 times, and a counter in the
corner of the screen tallies the repetitions. The moral of this
episode is that swearing is okay occasionally, but if it is done
over and over and over, it takes away from a word's impact and the
word gets very, very boring.
South Park airs on American
cable networks, outside the regulatory jurisdiction of the
FCC, where censorship of vulgar dialogue is at the
discretion of the cable operators..
American terrestrial radio stations must abide by
FCC guidelines on obscenity to avoid punitive fines,
unlike satellite radio. These guidelines do not define exactly what
constitutes obscenity, but it has been interpreted by some
commissioners as including any form of words like
shit and
fuck, for whatever use.
Despite this, the word has been featured in popular songs that have
appeared on broadcast radio in cases where the usage of the word is
not audibly clear to the casual listener, or on live television. In
the song "
Man in the Box" by
Alice in Chains, the line "Buried in my
shit" was played unedited over most rock radio stations. The 1980
hit album
Hi Infidelity by
REO Speedwagon contained the song "Tough
Guys" which had the line "she thinks they're full of shit," which
was played on broadcast radio. On December 3, 1994,
Green Day performed "
Geek Stink Breath," on
Saturday Night Live,
shit was
not edited from tape delay live broadcast. The band did not appear
on the show again until April 9, 2005.
Some notable instances of censorship of the word from broadcast
television and radio include
Steve Miller's "Jet Airliner."
Although radio stations have sometimes played an unedited version
containing the line "funky shit going down in the city." The songs
was also released with a "
radio edit"
version, replacing the "funky shit" with "funky kicks". Another
version of "Jet Airliner" exists in which the word "shit" is faded
out. Likewise, the
Bob Dylan song
"Hurricane" has a line about having no idea "what kind of shit was
about to go down," and has a radio edit version without the word.
Gwen Stefani's "
Hollaback Girl" video had the original
album's use of the word censored in its video. The music video
title "
...On the
Radio " by
Nelly Furtado replaced
by the original title "Shit on the Radio (Remember the Days)." This
also happened to "
That's That Shit"
by
Snoop Dogg featuring
R. Kelly, which became
"
That's That." In
Avril Lavigne's song "My Happy Ending," the
Radio Disney edit of the song replaces
"all the shit that you do" with "all the stuff that you do."
Likewise, in the recent song "
London Bridge" by
the Black Eyed Peas member
Fergie, the phrase "Oh Shit" is repeatedly
used as a background line. A radio edit of this song replaced "Oh
Shit" with "Oh Snap."
See also
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