More old GI slang

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Mon Apr 3 03:13:47 UTC 2006


"You live in shit!"

Back in the late '50's and the early '60's, this phrase, with
sentential stress on "shit," was used by white GI's to
congratulate a person who'd unexpectedly had something
especially good happen to him, such as being assigned
to T[emporary]D[ut]Y, which both lowered one's work load and
simultaneously raised one's pay.

IAC, I've never been able to figure out the semantic reanalysis
necessary to use something really bad to describle something
really good. Of course, I realize that "bad" can mean "good."

-Wilson Gray

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



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