It is not often that I find myself inventing new words in the English language. I know lots of people that are fond of inventing words that are appropriate to the situation. My grandmother is fond of “hookenpocky” to describe when someone is sick and you have no idea what’s wrong with them. My husband, having spent several years of his youth in the South frequently rolls out the word “aight” which isn’t really a word, but is a contraction of the two words, “all” and “right”. For years, my friends and I have used “w00t!” to express celebration, but only after someone else coined it.
I’m not responsible for coining this one either, but it makes sense and I think we should consider adding it to our mental vocabulary because seriously folks, it is a legal word and it is the past tense form of “shit”. It is also infinitely more amusing and sounds hilarious when you say it, unlike the present tense form of the word.
I know, you’re probably sitting there thinking, “I had no idea there was a past tense usage for shit. And who on earth would choose ‘shat’ anyway? It doesn’t even sound right. I just use the word as is because it sounds right.” Well… allow me to present the following evidence that the word “shat” is grammatically correct and hence appropriate for our purposes in vulgar use of the English language.
Merriam Webster’s Online Entry for the word.
Wikipedia Entry on the Word with specific reference to its past participle.
And here’s a link to a forum with a discussion on proper use of the term, for humor purposes only, because the conclusion is dead wrong, but this is to be expected from a website called “democratic underground”. It’s as though somehow, democrats were sponsoring an “underground” sort of movement in this country. One need only look at the political party of President Obama to determine that it’s a complete farce.
The other morning, I went out to my car and discovered that a bird had perpetrated this particular offense upon the sunroof graphic on my MINI. I stared in horror and exclaimed to my son, “A bird SHAT on my roof graphic! Quick! Get me a damp paper towel!”
He returned and said, “I don’t think that’s proper grammar.”
I responded while cleaning the offensive ichor off of my graphic, “It is quite proper. It is the past tense form of the verb. What did you think I was supposed to say? ‘A bird shit on my roof!’? No, that hardly sounds correct at all, and “shitted” is right out because it’s really hard to say and we’re all about ease of use in the English language.”
My son responded by laughing.
With good reason of course, English is one of the most difficult languages to learn, exhibited by the sheer confusion that newcomers to the country have when they hear the words, “you ain’t gonna”. Nothing in five years of education can prepare you for that phrase. How is a non-native supposed to interpret it?
Better that we Americans learn to conjugate our verbs properly and use the correct past participle for “shit” so that we don’t confuse the growing population of non-native speakers. Don’t you agree?
