Another "$100 Misunderstanding" (1)

[Wilson Gray]

On Aug 13, 2004, at 12:49 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Dennis R. Preston" <preston at MSU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Another "$100 Misunderstanding" (1)
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>> Neither of these corresponds to  my 'shit' which is just like my
>> 'hit' - hit, hit, hit and shit, shit, shit.

I'm aware of this variant. But, somehow, it sounds perfectly fine,
irregardless [what ever happened to this old friend; has prescriptivism
won out?] of the fact that it's not the "correct" form.;-)

>
> dInIs
>
> PS: Like Wilson, I was also flabbergrasted by 'shat' and also use it
> to poke fun, although I'm not sure at who (maybe at people who would
> say "at whom"?).

I know what you mean. "Shat" seems, somehow, to be intrinsically
laughable. My initial reaction to "shat" was no doubt also helped by
the fact of this particular barracks-mate's habit of using literary
cliches of the "It was a dark and stormy night" school and speaking of
himself in the third person. For example, after pulling out an
unexpected win in a game of (dirty) hearts or (crazy) eights, he would
intone, in the most pompous manner imaginable, something like: "At
first glance, it appeared that our hero's position had become
indefensible. But, as had hitherto always been the case, Eastman's
incisive mind quickly pierced to the heart of the matter, leading to
the expected foregone conclusion: those who durst test the mettle of
the mighty Eastman had come a cropper." "Shat" seemed to be just
another jocular pompasity of the kind that a character like Eastman
would make up.

-Wilson

>
>
>
>> .For approximately the first quarter-century of my life, I labored
>> under
>> the misapprehension that the principal parts of the verb "shit" were
>> "shit, shitted, shitted" and nothing else. For example, my ace boon
>> coon was given the Hell-Week nickname, "Dog Bird-Shitted-On," because
>> a
>> bird had, in fact, shitted on him. When I first heard a white
>> barracks-mate use "shit, shat, shat," I felt that he was just joking,
>> given that the guy was from Harvard. Naturally, a person who was not
>> only an Ivy-Leaguer, but also a graduate of Harvard College, would
>> naturally be familiar with the correct forms of a trivial, but
>> well-known, verb like "shit." as a matter of course. In any case, I
>> found the form "shat" to be so ridiculous as to be hip. In fact, I
>> took
>> to using "shat" myself, just for the humor of it.
>>
>> Imagine the shock when I eventually discovered that the form "shat"
>> was
>> not only genuine, but had also *been* genuine for centuries! I'd
>> thought that it was merely a nonce form invented on the spot by my
>> barracks-mate in a moment of whimsy!
>>
>> I guess that what one should take from this is that one should never
>> underestimate the power of Jim Crow.
>>
>> -Wilson Gray.
>>
>> (1) For younger readers, I should point out that a novel with the
>> title, "One-Hundred-Dollar-Misunderstanding," once enjoyed great
>> notoriety. -WG
>
>
> --
> Dennis R. Preston
> University Distinguished Professor
> Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic,
>         Asian and African Languages
> Wells Hall A-740
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA
> Office: (517) 353-0740
> Fax: (517) 432-2736
>