Well, I found a website that SAYS the Ship-High-In-Transit story is not true. Here's the link: http://www.snopes.com/language/acronyms/shit.htm Here's what it says: Origins: This sorry piece of codswallop about exploding ships appears to have begun its Internet life in February 2002. Its cousin, the "bad smelling steamship fuel" tale (second example quoted above), began its online life as an April 1999 post to the USENET discussion list rec.humor. Akin to the faux etymology of the word 'fuck,' a specious acronym has once again been claimed as the origin of yet another term beloved of potty-mouths everywhere. We could launch into a long, involved discussion of ancient shipping practices, methane production and properties, and Internet leg-pulls, but we'll spare you all that, as the fanciful stories listed can easily be debunked as the product of someone's wild imaginings through linguistic means. The word shit entered modern English language derived from the Old English nouns scite and the Middle Low German schite, both meaning "dung," and the Old English noun scitte, meaning "diarrhea." Our most treasured cuss word has been with us a long time, showing up in written works both as a noun and as a verb as far back as the 14th century. Scite can trace its roots back to the proto-Germanic root skit-, which brought us the German scheissen, Dutch schijten, Swedish skita, and Danish skide. Skit- comes from the Indo-European root skheid- for "split, divide, separate," thus shit is distantly related to schism and schist. (If you're wondering what a verb root for the act of separating one thing from another would have to do with excrement, it was in the sense of the body's eliminating its waste -- "separating" from it, so to speak. Sort of the opposite of today's "getting one's shit together.") Barbara "shit disturber" Mikkelson ----- Original Message ----- From: "Shelia Bachelder" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 2:57 PM Subject: [OKGEN ] Please-someone tell me if this is TRUE or NOT: > Dear Members, > > I realize this topic is slightly off kilter, has nothing to do with our families genealogy [really] but it's a history matter and I wanted to know if anyone else at all knew about this terminology and how it was created? If true, please explain and if not true, how do I prove it? IN other words, where do I go to find the answers for this one? Shipping sources or other? > > Please, forgive the topic, I truly don't know the answer and am grinning from the explanation. I received it from another source mailing list. > Shelia > ------------------------------------------ > In the 16th and 17th centuries, everything was transported by ship. It was also before commercial fertilizer's invention, so large shipments of manure were common. In dry form it weighed a lot less than when wet, but once water (at sea) hit it, it not only became heavier, 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 determined just what was happening. After that, the bundles of manure were 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. > > You probably did not know this true history of the word SHIT. > > > > ==== OKGEN Mailing List ==== > Indian Pioneer Papers > http://www.rootsweb.com/~okgenweb/pioneer/pioneer.htm >