[Ads-l] Valid First Use of "Shit Happens" ?

Fri Oct 7 00:17:18 UTC 2022

I suspect that the dating is wrong.

Fred Shapiro

________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Thursday, October 6, 2022 8:03 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Valid First Use of "Shit Happens" ?

Well, Google says it's 1969. The phrase is on p49. The only question is
whether this is a general usage or a specific usage, or both?

On Thu, Oct 6, 2022, 7:49 PM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:

> In the past I have checked the alleged 1978 Stephen King usage and it was
> erroneous.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
> Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
> Sent: Thursday, October 6, 2022 4:08 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Valid First Use of "Shit Happens" ?
>
> Fred probably knows about this, being a co-author of the book you cite....
>
> The "stuff happens" examples (1944 and 1969) also cited there feel pretty
> strong to me. The Brown novel is different; it's a more general use ("once
> you know the reason why shit happens..."), not a universal expression of
> resignation. I've seen a number of other 1970s examples in this general use.
>
> Green's Dictionary of Slang cites the 1990 "complete and uncut" edition of
> Stephen King's _The Stand_, and dates it to 1978; I think this is probably
> inaccurate: while this edition did restore a large amount of unused
> manuscript material that was cut from the original edition, it also
> included "new material that King added as he reworded the manuscript for a
> new generation", so I would not consider this reliable evidence for a 1978
> use.
>
> Here's a rock-solid 1983 example--same year as the Eble, but the right
> phrasing. This is from a Northern California sailing magazine, where it's
> presented multiple times as an example of a "cruising maxim":
>
> 1983 _38 North_ (Jan.) 139: _Shit happens_ The ocean-going equivalent of
> "That's life"...Our dinghy was stolen. "Shit happens." Your best crewmember
> runs off with your wife. "Shit happens."
>
>
> https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdetails%2Flatitude3867jaunse%2Fpage%2F138%2Fmode%2F2up&data=05%7C01%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7Cb88a83a359304bc1bff708daa7f770a2%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638006978432084764%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=nMU48bz4Wnl6USxYG4DG59xD5m4Kvl0e06tHXRYLwAs%3D&reserved=0
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
>
> On Thu, Oct 06, 2022 at 03:51:37PM -0400, Nancy Friedman wrote:
> > I found a 1978 citation ("Tragic Magic," a novel by Wesley Brown) with
> > evidence of earlier usage:
> >
> >
> https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstronglang.wordpress.com%2F2015%2F08%2F18%2Fshitlike-stuff-happens%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7Cb88a83a359304bc1bff708daa7f770a2%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638006978432084764%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=Y0P2TU1pLTQiX%2BwiqRivplXqvJpP5wIttv2U0zUhB8g%3D&reserved=0
> >
> > On Thu, Oct 6, 2022, 3:35 PM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>
> wrote:
> >
> > > It has just dawned on me that I am responsible for a kind of
> etymological
> > > urban legend that is not accurate.  The Yale Book of Quotations
> indicated
> > > that Connie Eble printed "Shit happens" in her 1983 compilation of
> > > University of North Carolina slang, and this factoid has gained some
> > > notoriety in the media as the earliest known use of the proverb.  But
> > > Eble's wording was actually "That shit happens."  To me that is not the
> > > real proverb, as it refers to some specific shit as occurring with some
> > > frequency.  The true proverb is a general proposition about the
> prevalence
> > > of shit in the world, which the Eble citation is not.
> > >
> > > Can anyone help point me to the earliest discoverable
> general-proposition
> > > citation for "Shit happens" ?
> > >
> > > Fred Shapiro
> > >
>
>
>
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