Heard on Futurama: semantic drift?

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:39 PM -0400 8/6/08, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Robot BE-speaker:
>
>"I ain't down with this 'Kwanzaa' _tip_ [there being only a single
>Kwanzaa gift, a booklet entitled, "What Is Kwanzaa?"]!"
>
>Presumably, "'Kwanzaa' _tip_ means "'Kwanzaa' bullshit" or some such.

Just a substitution of "tip" for "shit" I'd guess, given the fact
that even on (basic) cable you still can't use any of Carlin's seven
magic words.

>
>In 'Sixties Los Angeles,
>
>"That ain't nothin' but a _bullshit tip_"
>
>was a common expression meaning something like, "That's a dumb idea";
>"You actually went for that okey-doke?!" etc. It appears that _tip_
>alone has taken over the meaning of _bullshit tip_.

Maybe, but I wonder whether that connection is really active here, or
if it's just a simple euphemistic substitution.

LH

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