Today’s Etymology:

Do you know why we call ‘SHIT’ a ‘SHIT’ ? Let me explain:

Etymology of the word Shit:

In olden days whenever they used to transport manure from one place to another  for agriculture purpose (usually cow or other animal dung),  they used to carry them in big jute sacks and take the consignment in a ship.  While it was transported it used to take one or more weeks to reach the destination and in the mean time they used to emit methane gas (called gobur gas in India).   This methane gas used to stink the whole ship and in order to avoid the smell the transporters are requested to keep the manure bags at the top of the entire ship cargo.  The Shipping company used to ask the transporters to label the cargo as manure and a message  to keep it high in the cargo.

Shipping companies made a label of this so that it is not a big task for the transports mention it every time they ship a consignment.  The label was “ Ship High In Transit”  over a period of time they created an acronym of this phrase when it became “S.H.I.T”. 

Yes, Ship High In Transit is SHIT – as they transported animal dungs the acronym SHIT became a word in itself to stand for excreta in general. 

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Yesterday I have detailed the etymology of the word Sugar and had also asked you guys to think of the word ‘button’ in English?  Hope you have thought about it, let me explain it here:

First of all it is a fact that buttons (as we use on our shirts) was invented in India.  In order to make the button work they make a small hole and the button from behind is made to come out of the hole to hold the cloth intact and we all know this.    The word for a hole or an orifice is called ‘pothal’ (in Tamil), the same word got deformed to ‘pokka’ in Telugu and the meaning is same.    Now the one that comes out of ‘pothal’ is called ‘pothan’ in Tamil (in Telugu it can be said as ‘duri ravadam’) .

Therefore the word ‘pothal’ is a hole and the word ‘pothan’ means the one that comes out of a hole.  This word ‘pothan’ is the root word for the English word ‘Button’.  Pothan  ----- Button.  

Hope you like my submission as much as I liked sharing it for you.