Comments on: What is the etymology of the phrase "to shoot the shit?"

Question: What is the etymology of the phrase "to shoot the shit?"

jrb223 — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 08:41:01 -0800

What is the origin of the phrase "to shoot the shit?"

By: tellurian

tellurian — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 08:52:07 -0800

Seems pretty obvious. You aren't going to talk about anything important. What can be less important than shooting shit.

By: Idiot Mittens

Idiot Mittens — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 09:02:36 -0800

Maybe it's a derivative of the expression, "shoot the breeze".....which I guess means pointlessly pushing out the air in front of your mouth.

By: jrb223

jrb223 — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 09:06:04 -0800

In the brief research i did before posting the question I saw at least one reference to it being a derivative of shoot the breeze so I think that's on the right track. Where then, does the phrase shoot the breeze come from?

By: mendel

mendel — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 09:09:43 -0800

tellurian: He didn't ask what it meant, he asked where it originated.

I don't have anything handy that I can cite, but I'm certain that "shoot the shit" is derived from "shoot the breeze" (which, I suppose, is even less important than shooting shit!). Interestingly, AHD4 lists "shoot the bull" alongside "shoot the breeze". "Bull" is a nice transitional stage between "breeze" and "shit", I think.

Etymonline gives a first use of 1941 for "shoot the breeze" without a citation. But OED2 has a 1941 first use as well, with a citation: Guide to U.S. Naval Academy 149 -- but the usage there isn't exactly the modern usage: "Breeze, shoot the, to refight the Civil War, etc.". There's a 1943 citation that represents the modern usage, though. I'm inclined to think that 1941 one captured only the "waste of time in conversation" sense without the specific "idle chat" sense. Since it settled down to "idle chat" by 1943 and stayed there it's probably a safe bet that the term did originate in the early 1940s.

I don't think there's going to be anything a whole lot better documented than those, though.

By: tellurian

tellurian — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 10:22:11 -0800

You win on 'shoot the breeze'. I would tend to go from 'bull' straight through to 'shit' though.

By: ulotrichous

ulotrichous — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 10:54:37 -0800

A turd with a bullet in it ain't exactly 5 O'Clock News Ray

By: oxonium

oxonium — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 21:34:41 -0800

I always thought of it as akin to "slinging bullshit."

I have no etymological basis for this.