Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Who gives a Hazmat?

This week, I learned a new fact. The word "Shit" is actually an acronym for "Shipping Hazard In Transit" and has been in use for roughly 300 years. The reason it has it's modern connontation is because back in the day before mankind developed truly hazardous chemicals, one of the primary S.H.I.T. products to be shipped was manure. It was hazardous primarily because of the methane that would build up in the ship's hold.

When combined with the oil lamps of early sailing vessels, it would be some S.H.I.T. indeed. and a truly explosive combination.

The implications of this are staggering, when you think about it, as to how words become "curse words" in everyday usage. Most importantly, it means that 100 years from now, the curse word will probably be "Hazmat".

I see this as a tremendous opportunity. Getting in on the ground floor of a new curse word is something I have always aspired to. I may print myself up a "Hazmat Happens" T-shirt this week.

Of course, spreading my new curse word around is proving to be more difficult than i thought. Case in point: I explained all of this to Drew this weekend, and the conversation went something like this:

Me: "Ground floor of a new curse word, dude! You can be among the trendsetters!"
Drew: "I don't know, Rob... I tried that last year with the whole 'kronk' thing, and that went nowhere."

Needless to say, it will be an uphill battle.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

"Krunk". Not "kronk". See what I mean? Stacey likes "frel" and "frellin'" from Farscape.

RingoWolf said...

I use "frell" all the time.