weird words

[deird1]

I have a longer post coming (hopefully) about why I love superheroes, but right now the word nerd in me is geeking out, and I have to share.

It is fascinating that the English language not only uses excrement as an adjective, but uses it as different adjectives depending on which animal did the excreting.

Chickenshit = scared
Bullshit = nonsense
Dogshit = really sucky
Batshit = crazy

...and somehow we all just know this.

Comments

[zeborah]

Chickenshit and batshit seem to be extensions of chicken (scared) and batty/bats in the belfry, respectively.

I don't think I've come across dogshit personally so would read it as an extension of regular shit.

Horseshit is synonymous with bullshit I think, probably because in both cases there's a whole lot of it. Also by synonymy are euphemistic phrases like "manure" (and "guano" I think even though it's the wrong kind of shit).

Trying to think of other kinds of shit but catshit, turkeyshit, duckshit, sheepshit, pigshit all just sound like literal shit to me.

[lirazel]

Yes, it's so interesting!

[ruuger]

Have you seen Ismo Leikola's stand-up routine about the words 'shit' and 'ass'? Because I think they'd be relevant to your interests :D