Word origins . . . . ?

I have no idea if this is true or not. One of our "horsey" friends send this to us.

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Manure... An interesting fact
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Manure: 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.

Itwas shipped dry, because in dry form it weighed a lot less than whenwet, but once water (at sea) hit it, it not only became heavier, butthe process of fermentation began again, of which a by product ismethane gas.

Asthe stuff was stored below decks in bundles you can see what could (anddid) happen. Methane began to build up below decks and the first timesomeone came below at night with a lantern, BOOOOM!

Several ships were destroyed in this manner before it was determined just what was happening.

Afterthat, the bundles of manure were always stamped with the term ' ShipHigh In Transit ' on them, which meant for the sailors to stow it highenough off the lower decks so that any water that came into the holdwould not touch this volatile cargo and start the production of methane.

Thusevolved the term ' S.H.I.T ', (Ship High In Transit) which has comedown 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.

I had always thought it was a golf term :)


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Pure Indo-European in origin and variants have come down in many of the Germanic languages including English.

There are a lot of these urban myth derivations doing the rounds just now, including all the old tosh about graveyard shifts and dead ringers. This one, as any 1st year university student of English Language and its origins could tell you, is an absolute load of... well... shit!

Or to use the more emphatic Scottish variant - a load of shite.

You just had to spoil it Fi. I was going to mention thats were the term poop decks comes from.

I liked this story and will go with this version until I hear something better.

On that basis you could make up similar garbage about just about anything as long as it "sounds good". For example, there's an expression over here "on your tod" which means on your own.

I hereby state that the origin of this phrase is because in the past someone called Todd was a loner and/or sad person with no friends.

But that would be entirely made-up and quite possibly offensive to future generations of Todds.

And would ignore the true etymology in Cockney Rhyming slang.


Trust me on the Indo-European origin of "shit", Todd. I wasted four years of the UK taxpayers' money studying this sort of ...erm...crap.

And that comes from the Englishman's name Thomas Crapper who was a ceramicist making toilets.

Indeed, Kev, and the urban myth has it that the English invented the toilet seat, but the Welsh had the sense to put a hole in it.

but then........ the english had to "put a lid on it"