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:

Examples: [Collected on the Internet, 2002]

History in the making!!!!

Fabulous bit of historical knowledge: Ever wonder where the word shit comes from … well here it is

Certain types of manure used to be transported (as everything was back then) by ship … well in dry form it weighs a lot less, but once water (at sea) hit it, it not only became heavier, but the process of fermentation began again, and one of the by products is methane gas . . . and 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 discovered what was happening. After that the bundles of manure where 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.

Bet you didn’t know that one.



[Collected on the Internet, 1999]

In the 1800’s, cow pie’s were collected on the prairie and boxed and loaded on steam ships to burn instead of wood. Wood was not only hard to find, but heavy to move around and store.

When the boxes of cow pie’s were in the sun for days on board the ships, they would smell bad. So when the manure was boxed up, they stamped the outside of the box, S.H.I.T. . . which means Ship High In Transit.

When people came aboard the ship and said,”Oh what is that smell!” They were told it was shit.

That is where the saying came from . . . It smells like shit! :-)