Posted by
friday, 07:24, 14th October 2003:
In the 16th and 17th centuries, everything had to be transported by ship and it was also before commercial fertilizer's invention, so large shipments of manure were common.
It was shipped dry, because in dry form it weighed a lot less than when wet, but once water (at sea) hit it, it not only became heavier, but the process of fermentation began again, of which a by product is methane gas.
As the stuff was stored below decks in bundles you can see what could (and did) happen. Methane began to build up below decks and the first time someone came below at night with a lantern, BOOOOM!
Several ships were destroyed in this manner before it was determined just what was happening.
After that, the bundles of manure were always stamped with the term "Ship High In Transit" on them which meant for the sailors to stow it high enough off the lower decks so that any water that came into the hold would not touch this volatile cargo and start the production of methane.
Thus evolved the term "S.H.I.T " , (Ship High In Transport) which has come down through the centuries and is in use to this very day.
You probably did not know the true history of this word.
Neither did I.
And I always thought it was a golf term.
Posted by
Grim..., 08:45, 14th October 2003:
Dry manure gives off methane when wet?
Posted by
elbarto, 08:59, 14th October 2003:
Excellent, always wanted to know where that swear word came from, and now I know.
Posted by
Grim..., 09:25, 14th October 2003:
Neither do I, not for a second.
Where are they taking it?
Posted by
arsepuppy, 09:35, 14th October 2003:
You mean the word "shit"? I could have sworn (no pun intended) that it was an old Anglo Saxon word....
Dunno, you may be right :)
Posted by
chandler, 09:55, 14th October 2003:
"This sorry piece of codswallop about exploding ships appears to have begun its Internet life in February 2002. Its cousin, the "bad smelling steamship fuel" tale began its online life as an April 1999 post to the USENET discussion list rec.humor."
"The word shit entered modern English language derived from the Old English nouns scite and the Middle Low German schite, both meaning "dung," and the Old English noun scitte, meaning "diarrhea." Our most treasured cuss word has been with us a long time, showing up in written works both as a noun and as a verb as far back as the 14th century.
Scite can trace its roots back to the proto-Germanic root skit-, which brought us the German scheissen, Dutch schijten, Swedish skita, and Danish skide. Skit- comes from the Indo-European root skheid- for "split, divide, separate," thus shit is distantly related to schism and schist. (If you're wondering what a verb root for the act of separating one thing from another would have to do with excrement, it was in the sense of the body's eliminating its waste -- "separating" from it, so to speak. Sort of the opposite of today's "getting one's shit together.")"
tada
Posted by
friday, 10:35, 14th October 2003:
I got mine off a random joke email this morning
Posted by
arsepuppy, 10:41, 14th October 2003:
Seriously though Chay, which website are you getting this info from?? I'm sure I visited it once but I can't remember the URL :(
Posted by
Redmaiden, 18:49, 14th October 2003:
Aparently the word "bumph" (as in rubbish/junk) is derived from the word "bum fodder"
(I know this to be true because I read it from a Horrible Histories book at work)