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

Fri Oct 7 00:20:47 UTC 2022

Dan is referring to The Bible 2.0, by Nathan Smithe, not the Stephen King book.  While The Bible 2.0 is indeed from 1969, according to Amazon, I don’t think it’s a generalized use.  Here is the text in question, from Google Books:

“The things were all like, fuck and shit.  Eventually someone decided to take a dump.  They took a real big dump.  It wasn’t the biggest dump but you know, you know.  You know?  Shit happens.”

The next paragraph has what might be an antedating for “opposite day,” although I don’t know if anyone is keeping track of when the opposite day concept began.  It begins:

“19.  God was all like, “It opposites day!” and he turned everyone into a beaver.”

John Baker

From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> On Behalf Of Dan Goncharoff
Sent: Thursday, October 6, 2022 8:04 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Valid First Use of "Shit Happens" ?

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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<mailto: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<mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>> on behalf of
> Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM<mailto:jester at PANIX.COM>>
> Sent: Thursday, October 6, 2022 4:08 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<mailto: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%7C38665fa0f07e477e24a808daa7d68dd9%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638006837202918542%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=a1Z2KCt%2BYcj14hqf4DqTOfGaf7tzqfPZ%2FcxRu2oMtZA%3D&reserved=0<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%7C38665fa0f07e477e24a808daa7d68dd9%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638006837202918542%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=a1Z2KCt%2BYcj14hqf4DqTOfGaf7tzqfPZ%2FcxRu2oMtZA%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%7C38665fa0f07e477e24a808daa7d68dd9%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638006837202918542%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=EeOPJiruPhmHGfKeG%2BWPQJQRDfm4%2BQ2avssj4NbKNdY%3D&reserved=0<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%7C38665fa0f07e477e24a808daa7d68dd9%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638006837202918542%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=EeOPJiruPhmHGfKeG%2BWPQJQRDfm4%2BQ2avssj4NbKNdY%3D&reserved=0>
> >
> > On Thu, Oct 6, 2022, 3:35 PM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu<mailto: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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