[Ads-l] "You live in shit!"

[Dan Goncharoff]

I was thinking it was an extreme version of "you step in shit and come out
blooming like a rose".

DanG

On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 9:49 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "You live in shit!"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> New to me.
>
> Poss. cf. "Happy as a pig in shit."
>
> JL
>
> On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 9:45 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      "You live in shit!"
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Some years ago, I mentioned this bit of GI slang, of which there was no
> > trace, at the time, except in my memory and in those of the few Army
> > buddies with whom I'm still in contact, a half-century later. Now, there
> > are 24,621 raw G-hits, Web and Books combined.
> >
> > And they are all appear to be used as expected: as insults.
> >
> > In the Army, the phrase meant,
> >
> > "Wow! You are really *lucky*!" "Everything is breaking your way!" "How in
> > hell are *you* so fortunate?!" "I really *envy* you your good fortune!"
> > Etc.
> >
> > It was a friendly expression of envy that something had gone right -
> > seemingly out of nowhere - for someone else, as when the someone somehow
> > forgot to put on his insignia before an inspection, only to have it
> happen
> > that the inspection was carried out by a Navy officer, who didn't notice
> > anything wrong with an Army uniform.
> >
> > As for the semantic development, fifty years of pondering it has given me
> > no clue.
> >
> > --
> > -Wilson
> > -----
> > All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
> > come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> > -Mark Twain
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org