Shoot 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.
