In the 19th century,
it was ordinary to ship dry cow pies.
The problem there is that if this dry dung
came in contact with sea water
they would ferment and produce methane.
And when that happens in the closed environment of the hold of a boat
where there's usually the flame of a lantern at night
then… BOOM!
And you wake up with no boat, no shipment
and above all... no cow pies.
And after that, the dung boxes were marked:
(In French "À Transporter en Hauteur Durant Transit")
or as it was shortened to: S.H.I.T.
And that's how the word came into the English language.
Argh, no. Unfortunately, no.
This anecdote, long considered the origin of "shit"
would make a wonderful story to introduce an episode on this word
but it's completely false.
Indeed, there's proof of the word "shit" existing way before the 19th century
and on top of that, we can find its origin in the Old English and Germanic.
But you know what's not a pile of urban legends?
Today's episode!
Shiiiiiiiiit.
And welcome to Zed On! I'm Zed
and after being away for 6 months
what'd be better for an episode than one of the most common informal English word?
I'm talking about...
And even though it's a vulgar word for "poop", "merde" in French
there's a lot of idioms and other meanings
making this word intriguing as only English can.
Once again, it's vulgar, it's not correct in society.
But you'll hear it a lot so let's talk about it.
You probably know it already, "shit" has a negative meaning.
Something "shit" or "shitty"
is "bad" or "worthless" ("merdique" in French).
But surprisingly, if something is "the shit", it's the opposite.
It's the best thing in the world!
And it becomes weirder in the idiom "hot shit"
(literally in French "merde chaude")
If you're "hot shit", it means you're famous
everyone's talking about you, it's your time.
So to sum up, something 'shit" or "shitty" is bad
but if something is "the shit" or "hot shit,
it's very positive.
And of course, the context of the sentence or conversation helps a lot.
And between negative and positive, you have neutral.
It's also a more vulgar version of the word "stuff".
(In French "affaires" or "trucs")
It's also the English for "conneries"
meaning "insignificant stuff" or "something stupid."
It'll be the case in this phrase:
It means "doing something stupid" or "play a trick on someone."
And that's pretty much the same meaning in this phrase:
that we will conveniently translate in French with a version of "merde"
"se faire emmerder par quelqu'un."
And apart from just the quality of something,
"shit" has a lot of other meanings.
"To shit someone" means "lying to someone" or "joke with someone".
It's a more vulgar version of "to kid someone"
as in "Are you kidding me?"
(In French "Tu plaisantes ?" or "T'es pas sérieux ?")
and with "shit", it's going to be:
In the same way, you have "No shit"
(Pretty much in French "sans déconner")
On top of that, when "shit" follows directly a verb
it will often mean "nothing."
We saw this with the word "jack."
"Know jack" or "know shit" means "know nothing."
"Don't do shit" will mean "Do nothing."
And so on...
There's even both at the same time.
But now let's get to the reason I'm making this episode originally.
Phrases where "shit" has a very specific meaning
something typically English as in there's nothing like this in French.
One of these is very versatile
but here are the most popular versions:
It's in every movies and TV shows
it's "to severely beat up someone."
The idea here is that you're beating someone so hard
that you make him spit out or lose all his "shit".
You can find it with the more cordial version of "shit" which is "crap".
But also with informal words like "hell" or "fuck."
What really intrigues me is that this phrase works for a lot of other verbs and situations.
The idea being to exaggerate or amplify the action.
You're completely bored listening to that guy?
You're so bored you're dropping your "shit."
And again coincidently, we'll translate it with "merde", as the verb "s'emmerder."
"Frightening someone badly"
will be "to scare the shit out of someone."
And there's much more.
This use of "shit" is almost the same as in this:
meaning "losing control", "going mad."
Here, you're losing control of your "shit."
Another way to say it can be "to go apeshit."
I already talked about this in the episode about "Banana"
it's a more vulgar way to say "go ape"
also meaning "losing control" but in a more aggressive, angry manner.
In the same "symbolic but what's the symbol" kind of way,
you can find "to give a shit."
It means "care about" or "be interested in."
And last fascinating expression is this one:
The idea here is to pull yourself together, take control of yourself.
All these "shit" you've dropped, lost or given with the previous idioms?
It's time to get them back together so you can become the person you were
and be ready to face the future.
At least, it's how I see it.
And finally, let's see some common phrases with this word.
Like "shit-faced", meaning "completely drunk."
The phrase "tough shit" means "too bad"
it's an informal way to say "tough luck."
If there's a winner of the WTF award,
it's this way of talking about the time when everything went south,
the time when it all fell into chaos,
it's the time "when the shit hit the fan."
The picture here is pretty easy to imagine.
And that's it for this episode on the word "shit."
Anyway, I'm back! I still have your comments from last year
but, if you have a crazy question about English or a really weird subject,
you know I love that so write them in the comments!
And on that, and I'm not shitting you
I'm telling you:
SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!
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