Talk:shit

How can a word that's been in about the same use for at least a thousand years old be considered slang? Karmosin 19:32, 8 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

Well, the Slavs still have the root *jeb- (fuck) from Proto-Indo-European, so I don't think age has got anything to do with it. Wakuran 11:36, 16 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

That doesn't answer anything. It just opens an unrelated discussion about whether the mentioned Slavic word is "slang". That I don't know. But English "shit" is definitely not slang. Slang is a form of language used by a certain social group, a certain profession, or the like. If a word is generally known and is used equally by people of "all walks of life" it can never be slang. It can be vulgar, it can be informal, yes; but not slang. Of course, this mistake is made throughout this dictionary and others. 92.218.236.219 19:38, 16 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

I know that german for "shit happens" is mist passiert. I'm not sure if mist is used more than scheißen.

Scheisse = shit and Mist = crap or poo. Mist is just a slightly more "elaborate" way of saying it. Andskar S.--82.221.36.18 06:06, 14 January 2010 (UTC)Reply

Is the story true about the origin of the word being an old acronym for '(Store/Ship) High In (Transit/Tranport)'?

No. For a start, it used to be spelled scitte. The word has been around much longer than shipping instructions. Widsith 14:35, 28 June 2006 (UTC)Reply

And there is cognates found in nearly all other germanic languages (German Scheisse, Dutch scheet, Swedish skit etc...), which further discredit the backronym. Backronyms are quite easy to invent, and not particularly common before 19th century, so acronymical etymologies should generally be taken with a grain of salt. Wakuran 12:39, 30 June 2006 (UTC)Reply

That’s right. It comes from Proto-Germanic *skit-, which is from the Proto-Indo-Eurupean base *skheid- (split, divide, separate). It’s cognate with shed. —Stephen 17:38, 30 June 2006 (UTC)Reply

1. Currently listed as having two etymologies, but they do not seem to be distinct.
2. Verb senses 1 & 2 need to be recombined (translation section)
3. Headings are not in order (probably from the incorrect etym split?)
4. {{tag}}/{{cattag}}/{{italbrac}} inconsistencies.
5. Too many (specious) quotations - move to a quotations subsection.

--Connel MacKenzie 23:46, 13 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

1. The etymologies are distinct. The noun and the verb came from different (though related) words.
2. Verb sense 1 is transitive, 2 is intransitive. They are properly separate senses.

Don't mind about the others though (The quotations are not specious however!). Widsith 09:04, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

I said they were specious, as the most vulgar possible quotations seem to have been selected. While some will argue that milder citations would not convey meaning as well, I shall preemptively assert that they are full of it. Someone please remind me to request a checkuser on Saint Francis (talk • contribs • global account info • deleted contribs • nuke • abuse filter log • page moves • block • block log • active blocks) (Primetime) if I forget.

Adj./Noun and Verb/Interj. still need to swapped order. But otherwise, the entry looks much better already.

Widsith, if I haven't said so recently, let me say now: Thank You for your excellent contributions and cleanups. --Connel MacKenzie 17:30, 20 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

I dont think "shit" in "shit film" is an adjective. It seems to be qualifying noun such as "shcool" in "school desk", "world" in "world war", or "cannon" in "cannon ball". That is why it doesn't have its own comparative and superlative forms.--66.191.239.22 20:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Yes, in "shit film", it’s simply a qualifying noun. —Stephen 13:46, 19 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Disagree strongly. You can call something a "shitter film", or even the "shittest film", but it does not make sense to call something a "schooler desk" or the "worldest war". Shit can be used as an adjective. BananaBork (talk) 11:21, 7 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

to defecate. Latin: defecare. Fr: déféquer. It: defecare. Pt: defecar, evacuar, obrar. Ro: a defeca.

vulgar slang: to excrete (something) through the anus. Latin: cacare. Fr: caguer, chier, couler un bronze. It: cacare, cagare. Pt: cagar, dar um cagão, soltar um barroso. Sp: cagar.

Portuguese = solid excretory product evacuated from the bowel: merda, bosta, cocô, caca, totô, excremento, fezes. nasty, despicable person: seu merda, um merda, um bostinha, cuzão, safado/a, sacana. of poor quality: de merda, merdal, vagabundo, uma caca, ruim. despicable: merda, cagada, imprestável, sacana, canalha, pilantra, cafajeste (man), safada (woman), vagabundo/a, vadio/a. — This unsigned comment was added by 201.13.95.114 (talk) at 04:56, 6 August 2008.

Got stuck with Arabic خراء and found different pronunciation, perhaps all valid. --Anatoli 04:50, 11 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

In Modern Standard Arabic, it’s xarā’. If there are spellings and pronunciations without hamza, they will be dialect, and I only know about MSA. The one who knows Arabic dialects is User:Hakeem.gadi, when he has the time. —Stephen 05:41, 11 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, Stephen. Fixed the Arabic section. Will contact Hakeem.gadi occasionally. Anatoli 05:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

It's xirāʼ according to http://dictionary.sakhr.com It is a trustworthy source, I have added as an alternative. --Anatoli 09:01, 11 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

There can be considerable variation in short vowels, with certain limitations, since they are not considered very significant the way Indo-European vowels are. What is really important are the consonants and to a smaller degree, at least in MSA, the vowel-length contrast. It is one of the main reasons that complete vowel pointing is often not a good idea. —Stephen 10:00, 11 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

Agreed, I am aware of a few variants in other examples, e.g. Rabat, Palestine can be pronounced with different middle short vowels in Arabic. Anatoli 10:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

The use of "shit" as Simple past and as Past participle is, I believe, exclusive to the USA (or possibly I should say North America, but I'm not sure what form Canadians use) and I think it's important to point this out. (I'd be very interested to hear from anyone out there who has heard native English-speakers from elsewhere than the USA use anything besides "shat" as Simple past & Past participle?) Anyhow, in order to reflect both the chronology (i.e. the British were saying "shat" before the Americans started using "shit") and prevalence (presumably, based on the fact that in the UK, Australia, and at least some of the USA, "shat" is used) of the usages, I'd like to propose we change (and sorry, I'm not sure about the formatting of this, especially of the regional qualifiers I've inserted) the following:

to shit (third-person singular simple present shits, present participle shitting, simple past shit, shitted, or shat, past participle shit, shitted, shat, or shitten)

to something more along the lines of:

to shit (third-person singular simple present shits, present participle shitting, simple past shat, shit (USA), or shitted past participle shat, shit (USA), shitted, or shitten)

I've also reorganised (in the draft above) the order of "shitted" and "shitten" to reflect an order of 'most common to least common'. (I'm not sure if that's consistent with any Wiktionary guidelines that might exist on the subject & would be grateful to be referred to such guidelines if my assumption about that is wrong.) Also, I've rarely heard (or read) "shitted" and never heard (or read) "shitten". I strongly suspect that they are region-specific, or possibly just rare (does Wiktionary qualify things as 'rare'?) and/or archaic. I'd very much like to see a bit more info about where or by whom they are used, if possible. Any help or constructive feedback on this will be grafefully appreciated.--Tyranny Sue 13:26, 5 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

It’s okay with me, but the British used to say "shit" for the past tense, too. The "shat" form didn’t appear until around the time that the U.S. declared independence, and then was only jocular. After some 200 years of use in Britain, it seems to have gained a sort of respectibility and most people now think it was the original past tense, and that the Americans just didn’t know how to talk dirty properly. —Stephen 17:23, 5 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Ah, interesting! Thank you. Stephen. For me, it's not really about 'knowing how to talk dirty', but just knowing how to talk in general (not that I fully believe in prescriptive grammar, I'm just talking about my subjective reaction to how certain things sound). Plus, thinking about it now, it seems more useful (& therefore logical) to use a past tense that distinguishes itself from the present tense (as 'sit'/'sat' vs 'hit'/'hit').

I've always thought it interesting (well, strange, really) the way many Americans inflect their "shit" and "spit" following the rule for "hit", whereas in the circles I've moved in (including a half-American background) the rule for "sat" has always seemed to be the 'correct' one.--Tyranny Sue 22:08, 5 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

What about these? Should they be in there? (including their past tense inflections) And if so, what's the best way to go about it please? Thanks.  :) --Tyranny Sue 05:59, 7 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

You may want to add the Frisian (that is to say West Frisian, the Frisian language spoken in the Netherlands, as opposed to Sater Frisian and North Frisian, which are spoken in Germany) equivalent to the etymology section: skyt (noun; the verb is skite). It's a nice touch, I think. 80.61.230.65

What sense would the phrase "couldn't give a shit" come under? There is also "couldn't give two shits", which implies it is countable (which sense 1 isn't, currently). 109.154.74.120 21:35, 2 August 2010 (UTC)Reply

In fact, thinking about it, there is also "going for a shit" - should sense 1 be countable+uncountable? 109.154.74.120 21:37, 2 August 2010 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. I have added sense 3 "(countable) An instance of defecation.", a usage example, and the link to the "derived term" take a shit. At least, it is the basis for give a shit. DCDuring TALK 23:19, 2 August 2010 (UTC)Reply

There is a listing for "rubbish" here. But the Japanese translation is "kuso" which doesnt mean rubbish, as in garbage or trash, the stuff that goes into a landfill and kills sea turtles. In this case does it mean the rubbish I just described or more like "useless" as in "oh, his speech he gave was complete rubbish!", in which case "kuso" would be an acceptable translation.

Maybe the listing needs to be expanded a little, like instead of "excrement", it was expanded to: "solid excretory product evacuated from the bowel", rather than just "rubbish" maybe

It is already expanded in the definition line above the translation section. Definition No. 4 under the header Noun explains what is meant by shit in the sense of rubbish. —Stephen (Talk) 20:01, 15 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

A lot of the mentioned translations don't fit, because they are not (vulgar), for example Greek διάρροια, which is, according to wiktionary, a medical term ! --Fsojic (talk) 13:51, 10 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

"shit" or "chite" means hashish only, not all cannabis. For weed/grass, the term is "beu" or "beuh". Calling weed/grass "shit" is simply incorrect. 91.84.66.235 19:58, 12 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

Could some kindly admin add shite, sheeyit and sheeit to an alternative forms section? WurdSnatcher (talk) 13:39, 9 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

  Done — Ungoliant ^(falai) 13:54, 9 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Thanks! WurdSnatcher (talk) 14:00, 9 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Is "shit scared" ("I like dogs now, but I was shit scared of them when I was a kid") an adverbial use of 'shit'? A phrase?--Simplificationalizer (talk) 22:31, 31 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

I'd say it's to "scared as shit" what "ice-cold" is to "cold as ice". I'm not sure we should have an adverbial section at ice, though I don't know how to parse "ice-cold" then. I'm sorry, this doesn't really answer your question. --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 22:39, 31 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Why is give shit redirected? --Backinstadiums (talk) 00:32, 16 September 2019 (UTC)Reply

Please add {{root|en|ine-pro|*skeyd-}} to the etymology section. Thanks in advance. — 69.120.66.131 20:49, 21 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

Is there a separate AAVE sense "penis", or should that be categorized as just a specific use of "stuff"? Here's two examples I recall.:

• 2019, King Von (lyrics and music), “Went Silly”, in Grandson, Vol. 1:

  You gotta deep throat, lick on, and spit on my shit.

• 2021 June 3, @bog_chaser, Twitter‎^[1]:

  If the autistic shawty hits you with the “:3” she’s trying to stim on your shit like crazy.

Simplificationalizer (talk) 00:25, 28 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

> (transitive, reflexive) To defecate on; to soil through defecating.

> I farted so hard I shat myself.

Considering that example, doesn't this deserve the tag vulgar? Ha. I think this also deserves colloquial.

I'd also like to dispute the exclusivity of the "reflexive" tag, given the prevalence of statements like "I shit/shat my pants" and "You shit/shat the bed" 2601:58A:887F:48C:F0D4:7CED:E119:34D5 20:34, 15 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

  Done Fixed. "Reflexive" means just "sometimes can be reflexive", not necessarily always. Equinox ◑ 20:36, 15 May 2024 (UTC)Reply