more TV lingo

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:25 PM -0400 4/18/11, victor steinbok wrote:
>Unrelated to Archer, but I noticed that OED has "shit a brick" (be
>frightened or worried). I've always heard that as "shit bricks" and
>extending to "stressed" or "angry" and almost always in progressive.
>("I told him what happened. He was shitting bricks."; "She went to
>Canada without telling her parents. They must be shitting bricks
>now.")
>
FWIW, I've mostly heard people cited as shitting their bricks one at
a time, OED-style.  I've only ever heard it in the present or bare
stem form, as above, never "s/he shat a brick (when...)".  The
progressive, as in "He must be shitting a brick now" seems a bit
marginal but the perfect, with "shit" as the participle, is OK:
"Anyone would have shit a brick".

LH

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