Right in the sh*t

Carrying on from my last blog on night soil, and promising for those of you who do not know I would relate to where the word sh*t comes from so here goes.
Years ago, before the Industrial revolution and Britain becoming a mainly manufacturing based country; it was mainly an agricultural area and as a result required a constant supply of fertiliser, mainly in the form of animal dung. Britain itself did not produce enough ‘dung’ so vast quantities were imported from abroad in its dried form. (Less smell, lighter and easy to handle loaded into bails) Tons of dried bails would be loaded into the hold of sailing ships for transport back to Britain. A journey of several weeks/months at sea riding storms and leaky holds would result in the very bottom of the hold becoming wet or even awash dried bails of dung would readily absorb any moisture/water resulting in the cargo becoming much heavier and also the risk of fermentation re-starting resulting in the release of methane gas. Next person down the hold with an oil lamp and bang. Apparently several vessels were lost in this way and so, as a result the bails of dung would have warnings labelled on them stating ship high in transit which crew responded by stacking the dung bails high up in the hold where the chances of getting wet were greatly reduced. Over the years the warning Store High In Transit got abbreviated to just warning letters S.H.I.T. And so there you have it, and next time someone is talking a load of sh*t you can at least educate them into it’s meaning, or have I just been talking a huge load of C.R.A.P.

Just to finish off with here's a bit of black country humour:

Ayli was working at the sewage farm when he suddenly lost his footing and slipped in. "Elp, elp, fire, fire, gerra fire injin quick." Hearing his cries his pal, Aynuk called the fire station. In no time at all Tipton's fire crew responded. "Where's the fire then?" enquired the chief fire officer. "Theer ay one" replied Ayli "Burrif ard a shouted 'sh*t, sh*t, sh*t! yow wudenna terned up!"