more shit

[Wilson Gray]

On Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 10:09 AM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â more shit
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Give a shit/not give a shit in the OED (in Phrases 3., under shit n.) does
> not have a single example of a question, as in "Do[n't] you give a shit?" or
> "Who gives a shit?" (same for "fuck").
>
> Also, the variant "not give two shits" is not mentioned. I am wondering if
> this is more recent or just went unnoticed for a long time.
>
> "(When) the shit hits the fan" is correctly interpreted as "(when) a
> situation suddenly becomes critical; (when) trouble suddenly or rapidly
> breaks out", but there is a third sense variant--"(when) trouble finally
> catches up, (when) [whatever troublesome activity one is involved in] is
> finally discovered"--i.e., the shit hits the fan as a consequence of some
> disreputable action. Another meaning--possibly subsumed in the second--is
> "(when there is) a power struggle".
>
> P25. "Shit happens" has lost its purely negative connotation over time (did
> it have it to begin with?).

Absolutely!

> It need not be a "resigned attitude", but merely the equivalent of "you never know what might happen"--positive > or negative.
>

Whether a person considers this to be neutral probably depends on his
personal history. OTOH, when I was in the Army, the troops did use
positive _shit_ in the intj., "You live in shit!" = "You are really,
really, really lucky in the way in which things have just worked out
for you!" Usually, the operation of the [Great]R[andom]F[uck]M[chine
in the Sky] put the blocks to anything good that might happen to you
in the military: on the day that you're scheduled to begin two weeks
of leave in Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Amsterdam, the Russians put up
The Wall, triggering a Europe-wide alert, and all leaves are canceled.
The RFM at its finest! OTOH, if you go on leave the day *before* The
Wall is erected and, hence, don't get the word delivering the
anti-Midas touch… Well, clearly, *you* live in *shit*!

> Nothing for "shit-happy" or "holy shit!". The former might be relatively
> recent, but it does pop up: there is a Facebook page "That guy who looks
> shit happy in Rebecca Black's 'Friday'." It's hard to tell sometimes if
> "shit" is just a modifier on "happy" or if "shit-happy" is a single
> expression--to be honest, I could not describe what it means if I tried.
>
> As for "holy shit!", it's one of many "Holy X!", but one of the more common
> ones (contrast with Simpsonesque "Holy cow!"). Other "Holy X!" interjections
> are explicitly mentioned under holy 4.c.(c):
>
> (c) used with a following word as an oath or expletive, as holy cow! int.,
>> holy Moses! int., holy smoke! int., holy mackerel! int.
>
>
> "Holy mother of god!"

Often parodoed as "Holy mother-of-pearl!"

> is not mentioned as an interjection either--mother of
> god||shit. Never thought I'd write that... No alliterative "Holy Xs!" are
> mentioned either.
>
> There is an entry for "shit" applying to people:
>
> 2. An offensive or despicable person (usually a man); a person (usually a
> man) whose behaviour is regarded as obnoxious.
>
> But there is no separate sub-entry for children, who are the usual target of
> this description (e.g., "little shits", "shits running around the house",
> etc.--plain "little shit" appears in three quotations under the same lemma)
>
> http://goo.gl/oNRoV
> Scottish proverbs, collected and arranged by A. Henderson. 1832
>>
>> Shit. A contemptuous designation for a child.
>

Like _snot_?

>
> Going back to shitting bricks, another volume of Scottish proverbs gives a
> good one:
>
> http://goo.gl/VziOX
> A complete collection of Scottish proverbs. By James Kelly. 1818
>>
>> 209. That's hard, quoth the old wife, when she shit a mill-stone.
>> A senseless bauble when we think our fortune is bad
>
>
> Â "Worth a shit" is a common designation, particularly with negation (not
> worth a shit)--no mention, although other similar phrases and meanings of
> shit are listed. "Not worth a dime/nickel" is not listed either, but there
> are other "not worth a X" that /are/ listed:
> continental, cress, curse, damn, flaw, louse, mite, penny, picayune, pin,
> plack, pudding, purchase, whistle

"Not worth the powdwer to blow him to hell"?

>
> Only some of these have the same meaning (the obvious ones are "damn" and
> "penny"). Thought, mention, memory are not listed either in this context.
> But quotations include
> black dog (coin), bender, band's end, thought, nail, brass button, cardecu
> (coin), custock (castock==cabbage), "glass of cold without", cute (cuit,
> coot), carlicue (curlicue--curlyQ), doit (doitkin, dodkin), dog turd, figge
> (fig, dry fig), fillip, flick, fuck, fonk (funk), gooseberry, minute's care,
> grig, grote (groat), farthing, tinker's cuss (tinker's curse--under "not
> care a tinker's curse"), hoot, straw, leky's blade (leke, leek), couple of
> nut shalis (nutshale, nutshell), Portsmouth passage boat (??), pear, pease,
> pease-cod, pfenning, potato, bean, skerrick, skillagalee (skilligalee),
> sneeshing, song, sou markee, sponk (spunk), thost, tord (turd).
>
> VS-)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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