[1] As a slang term, shit has many meanings, including: nonsense, foolishness, something of little value or quality, trivial and usually boastful or inaccurate talk or a contemptible person.
The word is likely derived from Old English, having the nouns scite (dung, attested only in place names) and scitte (diarrhoea) and the verb scītan (to defecate, attested only in bescītan, to cover with excrement); eventually it morphed into Middle English schītte (excrement), schyt (diarrhoea) and shiten (to defecate), and it is virtually certain that it was used in some form by preliterate Germanic tribes at the time of the Roman Empire.
While it is common to speak of shit as existing in a pile, a load, a hunk, and other quantities and configurations, such expressions flourish most strongly in the figurative.
"[10] They conclude that bullshit speech is one-sided discourse that is difficult to penetrate because it contains "ideological barriers to the expectation of mutuality," working to deflect critical responses.
He doesn't have his shit together means that his affairs are disordered, reflecting not bad luck or forces beyond his control, but his personal shortcomings.
[11] This meaning originates from the observation that most shithouses are rather ramshackle affairs constructed of plywood or scrap sheets of steel.
When the shit hits the fan is usually used to refer to a specific time of confrontation or trouble, which requires decisive action.
He's the one to turn to when the shit hits the fan is an indication that the person being talked about is dependable and will not run from trouble or abandon their allies in tough situations.
The concept of this phrase is simple enough, as the actual substance striking the rotating blades of a fan would cause a messy and unpleasant situation (much like being in the presence of a manure spreader).
Whether or not this has actually happened, or if the concept is simply feasible enough for most people to imagine the result without needing it to be demonstrated, is unknown.
The fact that the orchestra's recent rendition of Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony in B minor was pretty much a piece of shit should not in any way detract from this."
“You can’t polish shit” is a popular aphorism roughly equivalent to "putting Lipstick on a pig" (although "a turd" is more commonly used).
However, the term was originally Eat, Shit, and Die naming the three most basic things humans have to do, and it is common among soldiers.
[15] The term shitkicker may be substituted with the less vulgar "chipkicker", as in Lyle Lovett's song "Give back my heart" on Pontiac, where a girl in a "cowboy-looking bar" is described as a "chipkicker-redneck woman".
The term full of shit is often used as an exclamation to charge someone who is believed to be prone to dishonesty, exaggeration or is thought to be "phoney" with an accusation.
Perhaps the only constant connotation that shit reliably carries is that its referent holds some degree of emotional intensity for the speaker.
South Hudson Institute of Technology has sometimes been used to describe the United States Military Academy at West Point.
[8][9] Satirist Jonathan Swift wrote a controversial poem "The Lady's Dressing Room" containing the following lines (115 through 118): Thus finishing his grand survey Disgusted Strephon stole away Repeating in his amorous fits Oh!
In Canada, "shit" is one of the words considered by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council to be "coarse, offensive language intended for adults", acceptable for broadcast only after 9:00 p.m.[18] On the Canadian Showcase television show Trailer Park Boys, characters frequently use the term "shit".
For example, the fictional trailer park supervisor James "Jim" Lahey employs many metaphors with the negative slang "shit" bizarrely worked in; in one episode,[which?]
Mr. Lahey tells Bubbles the "shit hawks are swooping in low" due to his deplorable behavior and company.
The first person to say "shit" on British TV was John Cleese of the Monty Python comedy troupe, in the late 1960s, according to his own eulogy[21] for Graham Chapman.
[22] The word has become increasingly acceptable on American cable television and satellite radio, which are not subject to FCC regulation.
In other English-speaking countries, such as Canada, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, the word is allowed to be used in broadcast television by the regulative councils of each area, as long as it is used in late hours when young people are not expected to be watching.
[citation needed] "Shit" was one of the original "Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV", a comedy routine by the American comedian George Carlin.
In the United States, although the use of the word is censored on broadcast network television (while its synonym crap is not usually subject to censorship), the FCC permitted some exceptions.
In it, "shit" is used 162 times, and a counter in the corner of the screen tallies the repetitions (excluding the 38 instances of the word's use in written forms, the raising the total to an even 200).
Other Comedy Central series, along with programming on other cable networks including FX, TBS, and as of March 2014, Adult Swim, also regularly employ the word shit.
These guidelines do not define exactly what constitutes obscenity, but it has been interpreted by some commissioners as including any form of words like shit and fuck, for whatever use.
For example: Some notable instances of censorship of the word from broadcast television and radio include: Using the term "shit" (or other locally used crude words) – rather than feces or excreta – during campaigns and triggering events is a deliberate aspect of the community-led total sanitation approach which aims to stop open defecation, a massive public health problem in developing countries.