Talk:Shit/Archive 1

message: Did DiscoMania pwn j00?
What the heck is a gerunitive? I've changed it to Gerundive. 
:It's a grammatical form found in a few Pacific Island languages. An example is skiwu in xmnei wowls moicop skiwu — meaning unknown. Rintrah 17:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Gerunitive?

message: According to www.etymonline.com, shit and scatology are from different IE roots...
Also, one could add info about kaka/kakka, which seems to be the main IE root, shared among at least old latin and germanic. (Cf. Cack - Caca.)
http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE200.html
:Added this info: "The most likely common word for shit in Proto-Indo-European would however probably be *kakka, (Cf. Latin Caca, Anglo-Saxon Cac, German Kacke, Kacken(Pooh, to pooh), OIr Cac(Dung), Greek Kakos(Bad) )." Maybe it gets too long with all the examples. Any etymologists, feel free to correct my mistakes.
==
The article says "it is highly improbable that any native English speaker of any age or social position can truthfully claim never to have used the word".  Is there actually any evidence for this rather sweeping assertion?  This may be true of under-50s (even there, I am using my own assumptions rather than hard evidence) and maybe it is true of everyone in the USA.  But do you really believe that all 70-year-old English women have used the word?
* I believe this comes under the heading of 'quibbling.' Yes, I asked every single, solitary native English speaker, and I have my reams of data right here. 
Old people curse like sailors, just not around the grandkids. Auto movil 00:25, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology 

message: :Several foreign loan words in English are carefully spelled so as to avoid the sequential grouping of the letters, s, h, i, and t. The word shiitake carries a striking (and artificial) double-i
Is it really "striking and artificial"? It may be striking for native English speakers to have a double-i in a word, but it doesn't look artificial at all. The Japanese article for "shiitake" is :ja:シイタケ, which is romanized as shi-i-ta-ke. Plus, the article :ja:シタケ ("shitake") doesn't exist at all, not even as a redirect. Sabbut 08:06, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "Shiitake" is a perfectly normal transliteration; it just looks funny in English. It's a four-syllable word, exactly as you have it. I believe "shītake" (that's an "i" with a macron) would also be correct, but is less common. "Shit" has little to do with it, though: this is the same pattern we see in the transliteration "shoujo" (rather than "shōjo") for instance. (FWIW, Wikipedia has tended to prefer the transliteration with the macron for Japanese long vowels, because it's closer to the pronunciation.) --FOo 19:52, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shiitake or shitake? 

message: Ok so why are you people talking about shit harty har har
On my talk page rather than here, Auto movil and I have got into something of an argument over this article. It started with my reversion of a set of his edits. That reversion was wrong, and I've apologized for it. The argument has been polite; I'm in no mood for a revert war and I don't suppose that he/she is either. But since the argument has been over this one article, I thought it might be better followed up here. Again, if you want to see just what it is that I'm replying to, take a look at my talk page -- you'll find it under the delightful heading "re: 'Shit'". Right, and now that that preamble is out of the way:
True, a gerundive is not the same as an adjective. "Gerundive" is rarely used to describe any part of speech of English. I wouldn't be surprised if some book somewhere uses it in the way that you do, but as far as I know the gerundive of the Latin verb meaning to "wash" is closer to English "washable" than to "washing". So I quite consciously changed "gerundive" to "adjective", not because the former seemed an unnecessarily fancy word but because the latter seemed more correct.
Let's look at a single paragraph. the following is from my latest version:
:In the word's literal sense, it has a rather small range of common usages -- other terms generally substitute. In American English, an unspecified or collective occurrence of feces is generally shit or some shit, a single deposit of feces is sometimes a shit or a piece of shit (although turd is, among many others, also commonly used as a vulgarism) and to defecate is to shit or to take a shit. While it is common to speak of shit as existing in a pile, a load, a hunk and other quantities and configurations, such expressions are mostly figurative. When actual defecation and excreta are spoken of in English, it is usually through equivalent terms (poop, turd, doody, etc.), creative euphemism (pinching a loaf, laying some cable, seeing Mr. Brown off to the coast, dropping the kids off at the pool, brewing up a pot of s.h.i. tea, releasing the prisoner, disposing of the junk in the trunk, launching a submarine) or with a more formal term.
I wasn't and amn't happy with that. For one thing, the list of creative euphemisms is unnecessary: two are enough, and I think some are pretty rare. But obviously somebody had fun writing them, and I didn't have the heart to remove them.
You've made some improvements to this paragraph. (Here's the diff.) However, you've also made some reversions that strike me as bizarre. Turd is again "the accepted medical term" (my emphasis), which is just untrue. (Offhand I'm not even certain that it's an accepted medical term, but I'm in no mood for googling or looking in the OED so I'll give that the benefit of the doubt.) Unless you're a low-level student of English as a second language, there's nothing counterintuitive about "taking" a shit, as take is obviously here merely a light verb (take a wash, take a leap). And I don't even know what "a vague and fairly rigid literalism" is supposed to mean, beyond a more formal term. 
I was wrong to have reverted your changes a day or so ago. Sorry. You were able to revert them, and did so without any objection from me. I then put in some changes. Some may have been ill-judged, and you're free to revert them too. But I suggest that you are a bit too reluctant to consider the changes made to your own prose. -- Hoary 04:13, 2005 Mar 26 (UTC)
Well, I don't mind your changes at all; it's that I was in the middle of doing my usual run of close-reading, one-phrase-at-a-time edits -- which is admittedly a bad habit -- and some other guy came in and started reverting things and accusing me of being the Pelican Bandit, or whatever that was about. So I had to chase him around the block a few times, and then everything started going all funny, with more reverts happening while I had the page in edits, etc. 
Honestly, we're spending a lot of time and thought over an article on shit. I'm sure happy to let up a bit if you are. Auto movil 04:28, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well said! -- Hoary 04:35, 2005 Mar 26 (UTC)
Thank you! And inter alia, this is of course the only place in Wikipedia where it's appropriate to talk:shit.... Auto movil 04:47, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Concision and reversions 

message: I noticed this was removed from the article:
"..."Shit!" is often the last word of English speakers who die in sudden or violent circumstances."
Now, I am not complaining or voting one way or another on this deletion. However, as a simple observation, if the accident that fractured my skull and femur, and led to a prolonged period of unconsciousness had produced a slightly different outcome, "shit" would have been my last word on this Earth. I saw the car coming. He never saw me. Always wear a helmet when riding a bicycle. You have been warned. Qaz
Well, I wrote that sentence. What happens is that somebody comes along and says, "Can you PROOOOOVE it!" And then you go looking at transcripts from cockpit voice recorders and anecdotal stuff all over the place, remembering your own near-death moments as well as everyone else's whom you've cared about. And everything's like you thought it was -- but finally you just think, "Well, if someone made you prove that the sun comes up every day, you'd have to produce a tablet of 'every day' since nineteen-zillion BC. 
So Mr. 'Ha-Ha I Caught Some POV' can go off and edit his article on an obscure ST:TNG character, and...I guess nobody would notice if someone stuck the line back in the article now, as someone might have. Auto movil 07:04, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Last words

message: *Shit: 77 .
*Derivatives (shit... ): 27.
104 occurances of "shit" in the article as of my last check. Romann 05:22, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I bet that's more than any other article on Wikipedia. --Nathan 02:06, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Number of shitheads editing it: ? 16:38, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interesting but irrelevant statistic 

message: — Xiong熊talk* 18:21, 2005 August 7 (UTC)
:Might I reccomend the Feces and Human feces articles, if you wish to see photos. --Psyk0 11:19, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  What! No Photo?? 

message: What about doing something for shits and giggles (just for the hell of it, or for pure amusement)?
There's also "flip shit" or "flip a shit", as in "She totally flipped a shit when she saw her ex making out with Lisa at that party."  The phrase denotes an explosive, over-the top response to something, similar to "going ballistic."  It can also refer to an extremely positive response, although this is a little less common, as in "She flipped shit when she got her acceptance letter." The meaning is identical with or without the "a" but most people have a preference they exclusively use.
Any thoughts?
:Yes, please include it if you can make it relevant somehow. If not post it in Wiktionary's entry on Shit.
Also, "I'm the shit", "He's the shit", and "That's the shit!" when referring to something good.
And what about "shit creek" (which one may be up) meaning "in great difficulty"? "Shit street" has the more precise meaning "In trouble with someone". Totnesmartin 19:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is an encyclopedia, not a dictionary. Documenting the various uses of "shit" is better left to a dictionary. Rintrah 09:10, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Hey, what about...

message: Has anyone thought about adding that shit is an alternative name for marijuana? This useage of the word probably stems from phrases such as "That is good shit". I would do it, but I'm not sure where the best place to slot it in is. Any ideas? --Nathan 02:32, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Marijuana 

message: I think the usage section and it's use as various parts of sentence can be greatly improved on.  All the many expressions are just lumped together at the beginning when they can easily be divided into their correct parts.  No objections?  I will go ahead and work on it.  No changes to the descriptions, just organize the points.  BananaManCanDance 17:45, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Organization of Usage 

message: This article is replete with stupid examples, such as 'you're a big steaming pile of shit, nobhead'  for a typical vulgar insult. Who the hell uses "nobhead", and what's the point of the example? I know it's a slightly frivolous topic, but you still want to keep it academic and not veer into amateur comedy writing. (This unsigned post was put here by IP address 84.13.152.168 at 13:42, 30 April 2006)
Your obviously living on Planet America, life and language exists outside your country you know. Nobhead is a popular insult in a small insland a few thousand kilometres west of America called Great Britain. Look it up on an atlas JayKeaton 04:23, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stupid examples 

message: Is is really necessary to repeat this phrase every shitty paragraph?Armandtanzarian 09:17, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, no! It clutters the article and makes it look like...well, shit. SoaP 14:34, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  shite in Scotland, Northern England and Lincolnshire 

message: ::The section under acceptance concerning radio stations (and the FCC in general) is nothing but opinion.  The article says, "radio stations with any significant audience must abide by vague FCC guidelines on obscenity".  This is inaccurate.   The FCC says that "according to the U.S. Supreme Court, to be obscene, material must meet a three-prong test: (1) an average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest (i.e., material having a tendency to excite lustful thoughts); (2) the material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and (3) the material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. The Supreme Court has indicated that this test is designed to cover hard-core pornography."  'Shit' is not obscene under any non-sexual circumstances.  Obscene material can not be broadcast at all on public radio and television.
::Indecency is a different story.  Indecent material must meet the criteria of describing a sexual or extretory function.  Thus, 'Shit' can be broadcast as long as it doesn't meet these circumstances.  The FCC/Supreme Court are not vague.
::I am thinking about how best to revise this section, but I'll have to think about it a bit more.  I've got a lot of shit on my plate right now. Alomas 07:51, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  FCC 

message: I removed this seemingly nonsenseical section. If anyone can make it professional-sounding, insert it back in.
:In general life however, shit is only accepted in some places. It is being increasingly accepted throughout countries all over the world. For example if someone was to stub their toe, they might slip up and swear. If someone else was to overhear this swear, they often accept it. So basically, saying the word "shit" in public after someone hurts themselves, is often accepted in today's world.
Son of a Peach 16:45, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: rm'ed!

message: Yaoi? What does gay anime porn have to do with shit? 71.103.253.67 07:01, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't. DELORTED. --FOo 07:38, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: See Also

message: False etymology seems to indicate that the article's topic is indeed not an acronym. A quick Google search on "shit etymology" brings up other articles contradicting this section of the article. Since I am afraid of making any changes myself, can someone else review this? 
Jeff 09:42, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Etymology incorrect?

message: Am I, the mighty Obbop, the only one to see this: " your a shit eater ". I am not an expert in that high-falutin' grammar stuff but, shouldn't that "your" be a "you're"? I beat my breast in agony at the thought of such an obvious error going undetected so long.
Love,
Obbop
:Yes, well done. Rintrah 17:02, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Spell not Correct

message: How about a Swearword Wikiproject.
Will tht be a good idea
Nathannoblet 12:18, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Swerwords Wikiproject 

message: Your user name or IP address has been blocked from editing.
You were blocked by Can't sleep, clown will eat me for the following reason (see our blocking policy): 
repeated vandalism after 15+ blocks - AO
Your IP address is 204.193.6.90.
could someone please unblock this ip it is a schools ip and  multiple people use it thank you
Yeah... I guess many people from schools edit Wikipedia, and they do it at school because they're bored in class. I don't think anybody will be unblocking that IP anytime soon. Slartibartfast1992 23:15, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  unblock user 

message: Should we add as a trivia this antagonistic association between divine and abject? Raja Lon Flattery 17:50, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Holy Shit 

message: I know this is strange, but I have a certain liking for this article; so much in fact, that it inspired me both to clean the crap from under a few random keys of my keyboard to restore functionality and actually start editing with an account.  Shit definitely has the best discussion page and some of the most outrageous material in the article, while providing information that is at least questionably interesting to a scholarly reader. (Compare it, for example with "geology"; I'd much rather discuss whether shit is frequently a person's last word in the case of a sudden, traumatic death, than whether it's fair to say that geology is different from geography in that it doesn't consider the human element.) Nevertheless, I feel that adding references to the article would also add to the general feeling of wellbeing I experience every time I read the article. Lol. I'd like to see a citation for the phrase "dropping a deuce" or see that some stuffy old man has provided the world with a tidbit regarding shit.  I don't know... call me crazy, but I think it's sad that such a solid article has so few references.
Nappyjon 08:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You can also find shit in the toilet. Usually the source is known. And... get this: it is sometimes peer-reviewed. You should not get sad about shit. Let it go to its home with its brethren. Rintrah 17:01, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  References anyone? 

message: There should be another section for shit in other languages. Rintrah 17:01, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: In other languages

message: :According to Saussure (Cours de linguistique générale) the word shit derives from the french "chaise" (= chair). In the late 17th century a French invention, the "toilet-chair", became popular throughout Europe in aristocratic houses. Soon the term "chaise" was common for many kinds of shit-linked issues. In germany the most popular swear-word "Scheiße" was born, which was shortened by the Anglo-Saxons into "shit" or "shite".
Although I don't know the source and whether Saussure actually claimed this, it's pretty obviously nonsense and completely contradictory with other etymologies. I don't think it's worth including.
This is apparently a nonsense hoax added by an anonymous IP.
:Can someone remove this nonsense? It's pretty obvious that the word shit did not come from the French word for chair because of the invention of a 17th century toilet, when the fucking word is in Canturbury Tales 300 years earlier. It's a fucking insult to anyone who knows shit from shinola about continental history to suggest that a medieval English word was derived from a modern German word which was derived from a modern French word (?)
::Someone had a good laugh writing it. I had a good laugh reading it; but I had to agree, it was a load of shit. I deleted it. Rintrah 14:18, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, cheers...
maybe the whole thing is less hoaxie than you think: 
1. the word stool (same in german: stuhl) as a medical term for feces or shit comes undoubtly from the toilet-seat. maybe the century is wrong, but the connection is sure and makes sense. (e.g. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=stool)
2. according to http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=shit&searchmode=none the noun shit as excrement is read first time in 1585, which makes the idea of a connection chaise-scheisse-shit even less unbelievable
3. according to contemporary etymology not only the german word "scheisse", but also shit, science, conscience, and a lot of other words derive from a indogermanic word "skeid". some sites count even schizophrenia in, i don't know, maybe thats too academic for me. (schizphrenia derives (again) from a german medical term with the usual greek roots.)
4. the development of words is neither a one way road nor a one track thing: the british shysters comes from german "scheisser" even though they allready had the indogermanic shit allready, same could have happened to a "shit" that was there before, but became popular, when the german scheisse had his hype.
5. in ther etymology-book from 1850something the grimm-brothers doubt, that scheisse comes from the indogermanic  roots: "etymologische beziehungen zu den verwandten indogerm. sprachen sind unsicher", but they suspect a connection to the french chasser...
a lot of speculation, but i think the chaise-theory is at least as reasonable as the pseudo academic "skeid"-theory.
at last: is this going to be a copy of dusty and hardly checkable knowledge, like: i read it in a book once - it must be right, or shouldn't we give new knowledge at least a bit of a chance  to proof itself ? i plead for taking the chapter back in.
cheers,
your self 85.178.12.137 16:19, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Perhaps it is less hoaxie than I thought, but the point still remains: it is a hoax. Rintrah 16:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology 

message: Needs to be a mention of the term "dipshit" in the article somewhere and I don't know if I noted the term "shit stirrer"
:You could mention the person who wrote the article is a dipshit; anyone who does not see a problem with the lack of sources in the article is also a dipshit. Rintrah 11:27, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dipshit 

message: There was a section in here earlier that discussed the occasional need to add an adjective such as wicked to the word shit when actually using the word shit in its literal sense, ie to describe a bowel movement.   One example was "I missed the prime-minister's speech because I had to go take a wicked shit."  The usage wasn't expressed perfectly.  Nevertheless I was sorry to see it get completely removed.  It should have been edited.  The intention, I believe, was to demonstrate that the word shit is so often used as a euphemism  that one needs to add a strong adjective to make clear that the word is in fact being used literally.  If the word wicked was removed and the person said "I missed the prime-minister's speech because I had to shit" ambiguity results.  It is not clear that the person is commicating that his need to defecate forced him to miss the speech, rather than simply communicating an editorial remark about the value of listening to the prime-minister. 209.53.208.83 17:34, 26 November 2006 David C, November 2006(UTC)
:Shit used as a euphemism?! Are you shitting me?! There is one problem with that addition: it is original research. Look for sources, and then you can have your love child in the article. :) Rintrah 16:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Wicked Shit

message: I thought this was interesting:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl-s-word.htm
Jek1875 10:07, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A link 

message: This articles goes on and on, and is completely unsourced. Is it really necessary to cite every example of shit's usage? The entire false etymology section of "shit" is extraneous; it is enough to say it exists and is wrong. Too many drive-by editors think, "OMG, I'm going to totally add my own example of shit and talk shit." Please aim at conciseness. Rintrah 16:17, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Article Length

message: This question may occur in each and every one of you. Am i right? can we really taste the taste of the shit? well doctors announced that as the shit is our digested food and other stuff mixed together - by re-entering it in our body we can make a great effect an more matebolisim work fastly. The doctors also said that there are flavours. One can refer to the milky shit- a common white shit with a taste of dead flies. Then there's the most common: brown shit, tastes of milky chocolate and orange soda. There's also the dark shit, generally known as: the tastiest. But can we brave in something so simple? can we really eat it?! even if we know that it's so good for our health?
i'll leave the answer storming in your minds... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Harja (talk • contribs) 15:34, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Needless to say—indeed, I don't even know why I'm saying it—you're full of shit. You might have more luck peddling your wares on toilet humour. Rintrah 14:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shit, is it good for our health? 

message: Perhaps note should be made of the use of the word in the movie Accepted, which, according to its page, has 62 references to the word, including the abbreviation S.H.I.T for South Harmon Institute of Technology.--Kedalfax 19:54, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Accepted]] 

message: I'm missing some photographs. Maybe in 100 000 000 000 Billion years aliens won't know what shit looks like because scientists will develope a possibily to stop us shitting. --84.159.61.189 16:05, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Go to google.com, click "Images", type in "shit", and then click "Search". Now take your nonsense elsewhere. Rintrah 15:45, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pictures 

message: When talking about the other euphemisms for defecating, there are 43 euphemisms, 43 of which I have never heard of in my life (do the math). The most common one I hear, going #2, is not even listed. While I can understand 2, maybe 3 euphemisms, 43 is too many, especially when they all seem obscure and out of common usage -- the purpose of the list in the first place is to give an example of what is used instead, so it should read something like this:
For practical purposes, when actual defecation and excreta are spoken of in English, it is either through creative euphemism (e.g., [2 or 3 items]) or with a vague and fairly rigid literalism.
In a side note, the general presentation of the article is rather choppy and to me looks like it should be rather redone, but who I am I to say how it works? I'm just a poor high school student who hasn't heard this word used a lot since I stopped riding the bus from school... IMacWin95 00:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too many euphemisms? 

message: fuck you, wikipedia, you win. you've taken your disgusting victory and rubbed it in our faces. please respond on the talk page of herkelthebrave, if you have questions. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.231.127.15 (talk) 22:32, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  you win! 

message: * Whiff: A Pill that Stops the Smell of Shit
Reason for addition: this is a legitimate product, a dietary supplement, whose presence on the market is a noteworthy addition to the Shit page.
Thanks,
Steve
:Discuss it first. Cbrown1023 talk 22:48, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  External source addition 

message: For the Whiff addition:
Steveschuster 02:18, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sorry - contact for that last post 

message: Does some admin want to give the hilarious User: Farmidillo a vandalism warning for his ", another word for shit is known to be Hyper97" Dkkicks 10:29, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Warning