Interesting fact ? Not Checked but I’m Sure One of You Will Take the Trouble….

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..

It was shipped dry, because in dry form it weighed a lot less than when wet, but once water (at sea) hit it, it not only became heavier, but 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 “Ship High In Transit” on them, which meant for the sailors to stow it 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.

Thus evolved the term ” S.H.I.T ” , (Ship High In Transport) which has come down 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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To which someone responded:

Utter shit, but amusing nonetheless. The etymology is Norse, through the Old English.

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And in case you need confirmation (this from Wikipedia):

Etymology

Scholars trace the word back to Old Norse origin (skita, to defecate), and it is virtually certain that it was used in some form by preliterate Germanic tribes at the time of the Roman Empire. It was originally adopted into Old English as the nouns scite (dung, attested only in place names) and scitte (diarrhoea), and the verb scitan (to defecate, attested only in bescitan, to cover with excrement); eventually it morphed into Middle English schitte (excrement), schyt (diarrhoea) and shiten (to defecate). The word may be further traced to Proto-Germanic *skit-, and ultimately to Proto-Indo-European *skheid-. Ancient Greek language had ‘skor’ (root ‘skat-‘ from which modern Greek ‘skat ¡’). The words ‘sk ­tur’ (noun) and ‘sk ­ta’ (verb), still exist in the Icelandic language today, and in other Scandinavian languages variations of ‘skit’ are also often used.