{"id":2412,"date":"2016-09-14T14:16:50","date_gmt":"2016-09-14T19:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/?p=2412"},"modified":"2016-09-14T14:16:50","modified_gmt":"2016-09-14T19:16:50","slug":"the-best-shit-has-to-offer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/the-best-shit-has-to-offer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best Shit Has to Offer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every language is enlivened by its array of idioms.\u00a0 Americans seem to be particularly fond of the word \u201cshit\u201d, perhaps because these idioms take advantage of the tension between the taboo of a body effluent and the titillating guilty pleasure of potty humor.\u00a0 Unlike many idioms that are based on local history, religion, geography or contemporary culture, shit idioms should be self-explanatory and immediately understandable across languages. Culled from a list of hundreds, the following idioms represent the best that shit has to offer.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 When the Shit Hits the Fan<\/p>\n

This idiom is chosen for its graphic visual describing something that goes terribly, terribly wrong.\u00a0 I stand in grateful awe to the Shakespeare-caliber wit who first penned this stunner, his name now sadly lost to history.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I recall a humid childhood day sitting with a group of friends next to a fan, when my brother decided to test out the aerodynamic effects of a body fluid applied to moving blades. He spat into the fan.\u00a0 The drifting mist brought the idiom into horrific focus.\u00a0 The related idiom \u201cshit storm\u201d is feeble in comparison.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Shit-eating Grin<\/p>\n

It is difficult to dwell on the explicit meaning of this idiom and it does not display the same level of creativity as No. 1 above.\u00a0 However, the\u00a0idiom demonstrates the versatility of shit, simultaneously engaging multiple senses \u2013 visual, tactile\/mouth-feel, smell, and yes, yuck, even taste.\u00a0 It also captures the conceptual naughtiness of shit, of someone enjoying a guilty pleasure.\u00a0 Okay, I would agree that this idiom may be difficult to translate to other languages and that it might reflect poorly on Americans.\u00a0 An alternative for a more genteel audience might be \u201clike a cat who ate a canary.\u201d<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Don\u2019t Shit Where You Live<\/p>\n

I love the scientific flavor of this idiom, neatly describing the evolutionary imperative for a social animal living in a confined space.\u00a0 It applies not only to humans but foxes, rabbits, basically anyone lives in a den.\u00a0 This coziness requires a modicum of personal space, free from the health hazard of feces.\u00a0 The evolution of voluntary sphincters was a breakthrough event for all of us living in close quarters.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Holy Shit<\/p>\n

This idiom does not present a strong visual but is chosen for its linkage between the blasphemy of old and current expletives.\u00a0 As the power of the church waned, words such as God, Damn, Hell and their religious ilk were no longer taboo.\u00a0 New words were needed and the taboo moved from expletives to culturally-defined obscenities describing sex, anatomy and the curious category of \u201ceffluvia,\u201d of which shit is a member.\u00a0 Combining \u201choly\u201d and \u201cshit\u201d embraces the entire spectrum of expletives across centuries of psycholinguistic evolution.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 Shit Happens<\/p>\n

This idiom showcases shit as a philosophical statement about the vagaries of fate and coincidence.\u00a0 Optimists may favor such saccharine phrases as \u201cgood things happen to good people,\u201d but \u201cshit happens\u201d is simple, direct, real.<\/p>\n

Honorable Mention:<\/p>\n

Visual (the most robust and creative category):<\/p>\n

Up shit creek without a paddle, ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag, rare as rocking horse shit, push shit uphill with a pity stick (This latter idiom might be difficult to translate to other languages, but I have personally witnessed this act, and probably also performed it myself.\u00a0 I can confirm it is not a pretty sight.)<\/p>\n

Alliterative:<\/p>\n

Shit on a shingle, no shit Sherlock, don\u2019t know shit from Shinola (a very unfortunate idiom for the Shinola company that makes black shoe polish)<\/p>\n

Animal category, which might reflect agrarian roots:<\/p>\n

Dog shit, horse shit, bull shit chicken shit, bat shit, and the outlier ape shit.<\/p>\nFollow Liza Blue on: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>Share: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every language is enlivened by its array of idioms.\u00a0 Americans seem to be particularly fond of the word \u201cshit\u201d, perhaps because these idioms take advantage of the tension between the taboo of a body effluent and the titillating guilty pleasure … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[40,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lists","category-what-words-mean"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVc8-CU","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2412"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2413,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412\/revisions\/2413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}