The Truth about Number 2

On my walk last evening I passed a group of teenagers (Is “group” the right term? Or is it “gaggle” or “pride” or “passel”, maybe its “annoyance”? Yeah, that’s it). I passed an annoyance of teenagers and one was breathlessly telling a story that was obviously utter bullshit.

“The car was going 100 miles an hour and suddenly he opens the door and jumps out, I shit you not.”

The line that got my attention was “I shit you not.” Where exactly did we come up with this phrase as English speakers? We use the word “shit” in many different ways as brilliantly chronicled by George Carlin on his FM/AM album in 1972. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f46HRlTIYDM

But why do we say things like “Are you shitting me?” as a way of questioning someone’s truthfulness? If you think about it logically, “shitting” someone sounds like you’re giving them an enema. Now, you can pay $9.99 a month on a plethora of websites and watch all of those videos you want and none of it explains why we use it in the context we do.

Back to “I shit you not.” This version is the most interesting because it sounds so Shakespearean:

King Henry: Dost thou shittest me?

Exeter: I shit thee not my liege.

Romeo: By the light of a Janus moon I believe you shitteth me

Juliet: No my love, I swear on the beating of my full heart I shit thee not.

So basically we have a phrase, “I shit you not”, that sounds like a denial of an old English fecal extracting colon cleanse that we as modern English speakers are using to mean “I am not lying to you or exaggerating the circumstances”.

How about some alternatives:

“I am not trying to de-turd you.”

“I’m not going anywhere near your ass with a rubber tube.”

“My veracity can be proven by your lack of anal leakage.”

Uh, yeah, I guess we’d better stick with “I shit you not” no matter where we came up with it.

Making it Up as I Go Along

I swear. Sometimes I swear a lot. It’s mainly when I do something stupid and get frustrated with myself or when a 5 minute project goes wrong and turns into a 2 hour fiasco. A third instance would be like right now when I’m typing these blog posts and keep making mistakes. I’ve already said some very bad words and I’m only a few sentences into this one. There are moments when I’m honest enough with myself to admit I’ve got to dial it back. I sometimes turn into an 1850s prospector spitting out “gosh durnit” and dag nabbit”. Other times I make up my own words or terms. Some of these I may have heard someone else say and subconsciously appropriated it in my own version.

crap on a stick--I usually say this in place of damn or shit. For some reason I use the word crap a lot. It’s still a rude word, but better than shit. One day I started saying “crap on a stick” which may be my lighter version of “Christ on a cracker” which I heard in a movie once and didn’t understand at all

craphound--I call inanimate objects this a lot. When my laptop doesn’t do what I believe I instructed it to it gets called a “craphound”. Any job I try to do with tools will get this treatment. Of course it’s not long before those moments turn into %$#*&. Tools and I don’t get along.

goofus doofus--I call myself this when I do something stupid, like mistype the same word over and over again. I’ve always liked the word “doofus” for some reason and just added a little pizzazz.

goof schnitzel--This one is new. Another term I hurl at myself when I’m annoyed at a mistake I’ve made. Goof is an oldie but a goodie and I think “schnitzel” is a funny word. One day I made a mistake at work and muttered “you stupid goof schnitzel” under my breath. No idea how my brain put those two words together.

bucket of bilge water--I believe this was born on a day when I was very busy at work. I was hurrying because I had so much to get done so of course I was making a lot of mistakes. I had already called myself everything I could think of, clean and dirty, made one more misstep, needed a term to chastise myself with and . . . this came out. It has a nice alliteration, but other than that I can’t explain it.

So what words have you made up to keep from swearing? Come on damn it, what the hell, you can frigging tell me.