A recent conversation with some friends over poor service, mediocre tacos, and cold late arriving beer turned to the study of words. Etymology, studies the origin of words and can be a lot of fun... it can also cause people to be completely full of S.H.I.T.
Our etymological conversation started when my roommate asked if anyone knew the origins of the word shit. Immediately every hand held device was on the table looking for answers from the Google gods. The answer (by virtue of quantity of returns) was as follows;
Certain types of manure used to be transported (as everything was back then) by ship. In dry form it weighs a lot less, 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 discovered what was happening.
After that, the bundles of manure where always stamped with the term "S.H.I.T" on them which meant to the sailors to "Ship High In Transit." In other words, 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.
As I left dinner I actually heard the same story on the radio as part of an advertisement for a plumber. So, this morning I did my own investigation and found that this story is a load of male cow patties!
I found the following excerpt at dictionary.com
The origins of the word trace back to the Old English word scitan (to split, separate or divide). The noun is O.E. scitte "purging;" sense of "excrement" dates from 1585, from the verb. The notion that it is a recent word may be because the word was taboo from c.1600 and rarely appeared in print (neither Shakespeare not the KJV has it), and even in "vulgar" publications of the late 18c. it is disguised by dashes. It drew the wrath of censors as late as 1922 ("Ulysses" and "The Enormous Room"), scandalized magazine subscribers in 1957 (a Hemingway story in "Atlantic Monthly") and was omitted from some dictionaries as recently as 1970 ("Webster's New World"). Extensive slang usage; verb meaning "to lie, to tease" is from 1934; that of "to disrespect" is from 1903. Noun use for "obnoxious person" is since at least 1508; meaning "misfortune, trouble" is attested from 1937. Shat is a humorous past tense form, not etymological, first recorded 18c. Shite, now a jocular or slightly euphemistic variant, formerly a dialectal variant, reflects the vowel in the O.E. verb (cf. Ger. scheissen). Shit-faced "drunk" is 1960s student slang; shit list is from 1942. To not give a shit "not care" is from 1922; up shit creek "in trouble" is from 1937. Scared shitless first recorded 1936.
So there you have it... but really WHO GIVES A SHIT!