Trivia; S-H-I-T

[Brandy[Ma.]]

Ever wonder where the word "shit" comes from. Well here it is:

Certain types of manure used to be transported (as everything was back then) by ship. In dry form it weighs a lot less, but once water (at sea) hit it. It not only became heavier, but the process of fermentation began again, of which a by-product is methane gas.

As the stuff was stored below decks in bundles you can see what could (and did) happen; methane began to build up below decks and the first time someone came below at night with a lantern. BOOOOM!

Several ships were destroyed in this manner before it was discovered what was happening.

After that, the bundles of manure where always stamped with the term "S.H.I.T" on them which meant to the sailors to "Ship High In Transit." In other words, high enough off the lower decks so that any water that came into the hold would not touch this volatile cargo and start the production of methane.

 

[Brian(upstateNY)]

n/t

 

[Craig in Alabama]

n/t

 

[Jaichim24]

Snopes rocks, sorry to disappoint on the story above. The link below needs to be fixed before you use it, just copy and paste it in your browser bar and delete the spaces. Or, just read below, I figured out how to copy and paste from Snopes.com.

http://www.snopes.com/language/acronyms/s h i t.asp

We could launch into a long, involved discussion of ancient shipping practices, methane production and properties, and Internet leg-pulls, but we'll spare you all that, as the fanciful stories listed can easily be debunked as the product of someone's wild imaginings through linguistic means.
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The word <I>s h i t</I> entered modern English language derived from the Old English nouns <I>scite</I> and the Middle Low German <I>schite</I>, both meaning "dung," and the Old English noun <I>scitte</I>, meaning "diarrhea." Our most treasured cuss word has been with us a long time, showing up in written works both as a noun and as a verb as far back as the <NOBR>14th century.</NOBR>
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<I>Scite</I> can trace its roots back to the proto-Germanic root <I>skit-</I>, which brought us the German <I>scheisse</I>, Dutch <I>schijten</I>, Swedish <I>skita</I>, and Danish <I>skide</I>. <I>Skit-</I> comes from the Indo-European root <I>skheid-</I> for "split, divide, separate," thus <I>s h i t</I> is distantly related to <I>schism</I> and <I>schist</I>. (If you're wondering what a verb root for the act of separating one thing from another would have to do with excrement, it was in the sense of the body's eliminating its waste — "separating" from it, so to speak. Sort of the opposite of today's "getting one's s h i t together.")

 

[Craig in Alabama]

n/t