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avatar_Senkusha

Let's Shoot the Shit...

Started by Senkusha, Sunday, January 01, 2023, 06:25

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Senkusha

So the other day, I was wondering where the phrase "Shoot the Shit" came from.  A quick Google search gives us the answer:

QuoteShoot the shit appears to be a variation of shoot the breeze. Both of these expressions mean "to chat idly just to pass the time." A form of shoot the breeze is recorded in a poem written during World War I by a US private, who described his corporals as sociable men who were much better at "breeze-shooting" than fighting or doing actual work. It doesn't require much skill or effort to hit the wind with a gun, so the expression goes.

Shoot the shit emerges in the 1940s, notably found in a letter by the author Norman Mailer. The shit, here, may be a more intensive and alliterative substitute for breeze, with shit meaning "stuff," i.e., any old topic. Ever the shit-talker, the character Holden Caulfield used a milder take on the expression, shoot the crap, in J.D. Salinger's 1951 The Catcher in the Rye.

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