Fw: shit v. shoot [was: Go sit on your East Coast]

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 1/23/06, Thomas Paikeday <thomaspaikeday at sprint.ca> wrote:

> > shit v. shoot
> > About "shoot" interj. as a polite form of "shit" interj., MWCD (2003)
> > gives its date as 1876, OED (v. 3 disk) cites from 1934. Perhaps OED
> > online has an earlier date?

This always struck me as a difficult form to track. If MWCD has an
1876 cite for _shoot_ interj., how do we know for sure it's a
euphemism for _shit_ interj.?

See OED's note for _shoot_ interj.:

        An arbitrary alteration of SHIT int.
        In some instances this may perh. be regarded as an
        imp. use of SHOOT v. 11j.

And here's def. 11j of the verb _shoot_:

        To discard, get rid of; orig. in _shoot that hat_, etc.,
        as a mild imprecation.

        1877 in Bartlett Dict. Amer. (ed. 4) 586 One lady..with
        derisive scorn..observed in the language of the day, 'Oh,
        shoot that hat!'.. The slang the gang is using now, You'll
        hear from every lip; It's shoot the hat! and get it boiled;
        And don't you lose your grip.
        [...]
        1902 FARMER & HENLEY Slang VI. 188/1 Shoot that (hat,
        man--anything)!..a mild imprecation, 'Bother!'

The definition of _shoot_ interj. given in Webster's Second (1934)
also supports the idea that it was thought of as a non-euphemistic
imperative:

        _Shoot_, interj. Pshaw! Bother! often with _it_.

So could _shoot_ interj. have developed on its own track (e.g., _shoot
that hat_ > _shoot it_ > _shoot_), only later becoming a euphemism for
_shit_?   This strikes me as similar to the case of _fouled up_, which
may have had slightly earlier senses ('befouled, clogged up') before
serving as a euphemism for _fucked up_.  It seems that when
expressions like "shoot" and "fouled up" get pressed into service as
euphemisms, sometimes their preexisting senses get lost in the
shuffle. Of course, it's often hard to know how long such terms have
been considered euphemistic substitutes rather than (or in addition
to) being
understood as free-standing expressions, since before the mid-20th
century few would dare say in print what exactly was being euphemized.


--Ben Zimmer

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