01x02 - sh*t

[bunniefuu]

Sugar.

Honey.

Iced tea. Mm-mm-mm.

Sounds good, doesn't it? [scoffs]

Maybe slightly sweet,

could maybe use a squeeze of lemon,

but still, it rings pleasantly

to the ear.

It sounds nice.

It sounds like something

you'd sip with relish,

swoosh around in your mouth

and swallow with a big smile.

But what if I told you that this phrase,

"Sugar…

honey…

iced tea…"

is actually a secret code

used to unlock a swear word

so taboo, so graphic…

that most of us

can't even handle hearing it

without seeing in our mind's eye

the very disgusting…

bodily function that this particular

swear word is used to describe.

Sugar, Honey, Iced Tea.

Mmm.

That's good sh*t.

[bleep]

[cat meows]

I didn't get sh*t.

Not even happy birthday.

I don't give a sh*t.

My favorite swear word is sh*t.

Holy sh*t!

I mean, obviously when I think

about sh*t, I think about poop, right?

That's obvious.

Why is sh*t a swear word?

It's a four-letter word

that means exactly the same thing

as the four-letter word of "crap."

"I've a bunch of sh*t to pick up."

No one's offended.

We make all kinds of cool sh*t.

They find out about the cool sh*t on the

internet, they'll want the cool sh*t.

sh*t is…

such an easy word to use.

'Cause you can add it

with any other swear word

and it becomes something,

like, cool and fun.

"Ugh! This is some f*cked sh*t,

some a*s sh*t."

- "Some b*tch sh*t."

- "sh*t a*s."

"Look at that

f*cking sh*t a*s over there."

"Some dope sh*t. Some damn sh*t."

"You are in trouble. Some damn sh*t?"

So, what are the origins of caca and

doo-doo's rebellious older brother?

[typing]

Words don't start out as swear words.

They're just words.

And then, all of a sudden,

they start to access, um…

uh, a culture's sort of deepest taboos

and just areas that the culture

is really invested in.

Somebody decided, at some point,

in the history of its etymology,

that this is a swear word.

It's silly.

"sh*t" probably came from…

an emotion.

I mean, I know the smart answer

is, like…

it probably came from some Lat

root word in a Latin lang

Yeah, so some bullshit like that.

[Melissa] "sh*t" is an Anglo-Saxon word.

Like most swear words,

it was not obscene at first.

It was just the word for excrement.

In medieval English,

there are medical texts

where, you know, talking

about excretion, they use "sh*t."

In the Middle Ages, going

to the bathroom was a communal experience.

You didn't have

a private room where you'd go

by yourself and sit on the toilet.

You had a privy with multiple seats.

It could be you and someone

you didn't know very well,

or it could be you and your whole family.

That is so beautiful. The image

of all of us gathered together, sh1tting.

Wouldn't we live in a much better society

if instead of stepping into the bathroom,

and getting on our phone

and answering emails,

and, like, posting on Instagram,

we sat next to another human being

and said, "Hey, man, how are you today?

How's that sh*t going for you?"

Looked at somebody

in their eyes while they shat.

It would really destigmatize

a lot of what makes us ashamed

in the bathroom, I think.

And we'd see a lot quicker

waiting times at Starbucks.

That's some bullshit.

There's a really great story

about where "sh*t" comes from.

It's a folk etymology about how, uh…

they used to ship sh*t

across the Atlantic.

"sh*t" comes from,

supposedly, "Ship High In Transit."

The old story there is,

somehow in the 1800s,

people would have to ship

manure across the Atlantic Ocean.

Mark my words,

one day I'll be paying to have

my manure shipped across the bloody ocean.

[Melissa] You'd have to put it high up.

If it were in the hold of the ship,

somehow the methane gas

and heat would make it set on fire.

Aah, who am I foolin'?

I'm still hung up on

some silly romantic notion of life at sea.

[mockingly] "Freedom,

adventure, treasure."

[scoffs] Pfeh!

In sooth, the only thing

that's guaranteed in this life is sh

[man] That was a bit of a lame-a*s story.

"I could have come up

with a better story than that" bad.

I mean, g*dd*mn. [chuckles]

[Nicolas] Before we continue

on the history of "sh*t,"

let's explore the accomplishments

of one of its greatest advocates.

The actor Isaiah Whitlock

came to prominence, uh…

in The Wire for his use of the word "sh*t"

in ways that nobody else could say it.

"sh*t" has become

a huge part of my career.

I didn't plan it that way.

He says, "shiiiit."

[laughs]

I'm from South Bend, Indiana.

My family's from Tennessee.

So we have the South

and we have the Midwest.

So I blend the two

to come up with…

Shiiiiiit.

…which I started doing

in Spike Lee's movie, The 25th Hour.

Did it in The Wire.

That's when it kind of exploded.

"sh*t" is for Isaiah Whitlock

what "f*ck" is for Samuel L. Jackson.

In fact, they're the "Ebony and Ivory"

of the 21st century

with those two epithets.

[Isaiah] Okay, so here we go.

I'm gonna do

the world's longest "sh*t."

Shiiiiii…

[continuing]

[typing]

Science has shown that saying "sh*t"

can be almost as good

for us as the act itself.

So, there are

scientific studies that say that you…

feel better when you swear.

If you're in pain and you swear,

your pain threshold becomes higher.

And there are groups that don't swear.

They don't use profanity,

but they do tend to walk the line.

So you'll get people who say, "Well,

I can't swear," for whatever reason,

but they freely use words like

"fudge" or "frick" or "sh**t."

And those are all euphemisms of swears.

They all function

the same way that a swear functions.

Many people think

that swearing is cathartic.

That when you have

some bottled-up emotions, it's useful.

Like, just think about women in labor.

If you're pushing a human

through your body and out of your vag*na,

you don't wanna have to say 90 words.

You don't wanna have to say,

"Oh, my God, I'm pushing this human…"

No. You say, "Fuuuuck!"

And you push it out.

All right.

[man] So we're gonns do

an experiment. You down?

- Okay, cool. Let's go. Is it freezing?

- [man] So…

So the scientist asks you to stick your

hand in a bucket of nearly freezing water

and tells you either to say a swear word

over and over for as long as you can,

or to say some neutral word.

And it turns out

that you can hold your hand in the water

about 50% longer if you're swearing

than if you're not.

[squeals] Okay.

[exhales]

[gasps]

[yelps]

[gasps] So, um…

m*therf*cking b*tch.

- Silly meeeee…

- sh*t, sh*t, sh*t, sh*t, sh*t, sh*t…

What?

sh*t.

m*therf*cker.

Hooo!

- f*ck.

- [laughing] A, B, C, D, E… ♪

…iiiiiiiiii… ♪

sh*t. sh*t! sh*t.

Aaargh! Aaaargh!

sh*t!

Pieces of…

sh*t. sh*t. sh*t.

…cake.

For some reason I don't wanna say "p*ssy."

"p*ssy" isn't gonna help me through this.

…iiiiiiiiiiiii…

Eeeeh!

- Eeeh… aaaah! I can't do it. I can't.

- [bell rings]

- Yeah, man.

- [bell rings]

[exhales]

- I'm done. That's enough.

- [bell rings]

- f*ck! [laughs]

- [bell rings]

- Oh, f*ck.

- [bell rings]

f*ck, f*ck, f*ck, f*ck, f*ck.

[bell rings]

…iiiiiiiiii…

- How many seconds?

- Two minutes and 20 seconds.

[screams] That's real!

I wanted to swear so bad.

You don't understand.

The more I said "sh*t,"

I felt like I was, like, in a trance.

The power of cursing.

Like, it's important.

It can help us withstand pain.

Swearing is powerful.

Thank f*cking God that we get to swear.

The ice experiment raises some

interesting questions about why we swear,

but also about how we swear.

To understand the relationship

between the brain and the profane,

we must look at the curious case

of a 19th-century railroad worker

named Phineas Gage.

And that is with a G. Gage.

[man] Phineas Gage was on a job

to lay railroad near Cavendish, Vermont.

Boy, oh, boy. Lucky me.

Another day, another hole in the ground.

[man] Legend has it

he forgot to pack the hole.

It ignited and blew

a three-foot-six-inch iron rod

completely through his skull,

- landin' a full 82 feet behind him.

- [yells]

Doctors were amazed he was able

to speak immediately after the accident.

I say, I say, sh*t!

sh*t on a g*dd*mn shingle!

But everyone who knew him

- said his behavior changed drastically.

- sh*t! I say, I say…

That he was no longer Gage.

sh*t!

- He became more vulgar in his speech…

- sh*t!

- …more aggressive in his personality.

- Damn sh*t!

- And findin' work became difficult.

- g*dd*mn sh*t!

Shingle sh*t!

And he also lost

most of his ability to produce language.

Except when he would struggle

to try to produce words, he would swear.

The rod pierced his frontal lobe.

And when it did that,

it compromised parts of the brain

that are responsible

for planning,

for social reasoning.

These are the very parts of the brain we

use any time we want to inhibit impulses.

They saw this as a case where you could go

from being a nice guy to an as*h*le.

Shiiiit!

[Nicolas] So, how do we use

the word "sh*t"?

I don't think I use "sh*t" as an expletive

because it's become such a part

of the way that I talk in general.

When I'm using the word "sh*t,"

I'm usually saying, like,

"I need to pick up some sh*t,"

or "I need to go drop some sh*t off."

And then if I'm cussing, I'm like, "f*ck."

"sh*t" and "f*ck" are

pretty interchangeable.

But, like, "f*ck" has

a little more power than "sh*t."

So I suppose, like, as I'm forming

sentences in my brain, I…

I make those choices appropriately.

"sh*t" is is bringing

a knife to a g*n fight, you know?

"sh*t" is also very effective.

Uh… I'm a big fan of "sh*t."

[flies buzzing]

That is one big pile of sh*t.

Let's say I… go to a restaurant.

I'm like, "You know what?

I wanna try this new sh*t on the menu.

Let me taste this sh*t first."

I call the waiter over and I'm like,

"Is this the sh*t that I ordered?

Because this sh*t don't taste

like the other sh*t."

The waiter's like,

"What sh*t you talking about?"

And I'm like, "The sh*t that I ordered."

And he's like, "Shiiit."

Shiiiiii…

[typing]

I think in the comedy world,

jokes around the word "sh*t" can vary

whether or not they're considered

lowbrow or highbrow or not,

based on if you're

talking about, like, "sh*t" as "feces."

Is it lowbrow?

It depends on whose brow it is.

I mean, you can't just say

in one fell swoop

that sh*t jokes are lowbrow.

It might be brilliant.

I just sharted.

- I don't know what that means.

- I tried to fart, sh*t came out.

- Ugh.

- I sharted.

I got up on stage,

talkin' my women's liberation bullshit.

Them kids wasn't tryin' to hear that.

Then I said, "Okay, who took

a sh*t on the tour bus first?"

They died laughin'.

[laughter]

Potty humor can be pretty sophisticated.

I think it's, like, kind of taking

its own journey where…

people turn their nose up at it

like it's unsophisticated and it's easy.

It might be, like, New Yorker-level stuff.

It all depends on the context of it.

"sh*t" is

in a class of cuss words all its own.

Unlike desirable fun words,

like "f*ck," "p*ssy" and "a*s,"

"sh*t" is something

virtually nobody wants.

- [typing]

- So how did "sh*t" become offensive?

[Melissa] Other words for "sh*t" from

the Renaissance were "beray"

and "bescumber."

And these words meant

to spray things with sh*t, basically.

It was a kind of word for violent pooping.

But you can sort of see why

they wouldn't be good swear words.

They're not punchy.

"sh*t" is a… a little bit more bounded

in terms of where it can go lexically,

just because it's tied to waste,

and so it tends to be used

mostly of things that are not great.

The word itself was

fairly inoffensive for a very long time.

You probably wouldn't bring it up

in casual conversation

unless you were talking to someone

who dealt specifically with sh*t,

like a farmer, or perhaps an attorney,

ha, ha, ha.

But as we got farther and farther

from other people's sh*t,

we distanced ourselves

from the word as well,

avoiding any mention of it

altogether for hundreds of years.

But why did we run away

from number two for so long?

More than likely,

it was due to the invention of plumbing.

People became wealthier

in the Renaissance.

They started to be able

to build houses with more rooms,

and this created

our modern idea of privacy.

And so, once you had

the idea of privacy and that, you know,

some of these functions

should be done alone,

not with all these people,

we got a taboo around excretion.

And then that made

the word sh*t a swear word.

[Nicolas] By the 1930s,

we start to see the rise

of sh*t phrases like "shitfaced,"

"shithead" and "chickenshit"

enter our lexicon.

But its glass runneth over

with uses and variations,

and the word took on

a broader role in our culture and slang.

Especially over the last 50 years,

"sh*t" has come a long way.

It occupies this really precious

real estate among profanities.

It's offensive enough that you still get

some credibility for saying it.

- But it's not so offensive that…

- [crackling]

…it's basically…

prices itself out of the market.

…iiiiiiii…

[typing]

Dee Snider, lead singer of the band…

[yells] …Twisted Sister!

wore a tank top and plenty of product

in the halls of Congress

to defend artistic speech in 1985.

The Parents Music Resource Center,

co-founded by Tipper Gore,

set the goal of increasing control

over children's access

to music deemed to have explicit lyrics.

I have been asked to come

here to present my views on, quote,

"The subject of the content

of certain sound recordings

and suggestions that recording packages

be labeled

to provide a warning

to prospective purchasers

of sexually explicit or other

potentially offensive content," unquote.

[Nicolas] The result of those hearings?

Parental Advisory stickers.

There was this momentum,

this head of steam

that Black culture had developed

that Tipper Gore and a bunch of people

tried to stop

with the Parental Advisory stickers.

The Parental Advisory sticker,

to me, was implicitly r*cist.

And to all my friends.

We all thought it was r*cist, because

it came about in the '80s, when hip-hop

finally became a commercial force.

It was no longer an underground thing.

I thought, "This is a misunderstanding.

This is a missed opportunity

to have a conversation

about where the culture is going."

More conservative people

try and invalidate

people they disagree with by, like,

pointing to their language as vulgar.

As if to say vulgar language is a sign

of, like, a lack of education

or intelligence or something like that.

It was just another fear

of youth culture and Black culture.

I think it's all respectability,

politics and policing

that perpetuate and uphold, like, racism.

All these things that scared

parents and scared Tipper Gore,

only thing those records did

were make kids want them more.

It was like a fire sale sign

in the suburbs.

"Dude, this one's got

a Parental Advisory sign on."

I hated when people

bought the ones without it.

I hate wonderin'

what the word could and would be.

I did gravitate towards getting CDs

that had Parental Advisories on 'em.

Like, I remember

Word of Mouf, by Ludacris,

and it has, like, a big…

kind of like a blowjob mouth.

And it was, like, hyper-sexual

and it had the Parental Advisory on it.

And I was like, "Oh shi-i-i-it."

Censoring is not a good thing for me.

Who's deciding

these are bad words? Who did it?

Who said, "This is the worst word"?

Which brings us

to a time-honored tradition

that continues

to help reshape our culture.

The transformative power

of African-American Vernacular English.

Once again, we owe

a shitload of thanks to Black culture

for taking linguistic toilet seats

and turning them into thrones.

"sh*t" went from being something

we avoided seeing, hearing,

or saying at all costs

to being th e sh*t.

[Kory] So "sh*t" really…

starting in the 1970s, 1980s,

there's sort of this new slang

that starts taking "sh*t"

and just sort of uses it everywhere.

Imagine you've been called

the worst you could be called so often,

it doesn't mean anything to you anymore.

That, in fact, you look for ways of

showing how that worst thing you could

that you're described as being

is something that people should want.

Now, if something is the sh*t,

and this is how you differentiate

between the good and the bad,

that means it is excellent.

It's kind of like taking

that negative and inverting it.

If somebody says I'm the sh*t,

I'mma be like, "Well, thank you

so much. I'm glad that you recognize it."

That's about taking the profane and making

it sacred, as far as I'm concerned.

"Bad" used to be only bad

until Michael Jackson encountered it.

"Fat" used to be negatively toned

until it traded an "F" for a "PH."

"sh*t" is the sh*t.

So to be the sh*t,

is the dopest sh*t ever.

But you could be shitty,

and then you ain't sh*t. Got it?

There's a lyric in a song,

it's like, to me, the most romantic lyric.

He says, um…

"You're the sh*t and I'm knee-deep in it."

I think the word should…

should be just a word.

I think it's a regular word.

No one using "sh*t" 100 years ago,

200 years ago would have ever imagined

"This sh*t is delicious"

being something positive.

"sh*t" is

just a couple decades behind "crap."

If you feel like you can say "crap"

in absolutely any circumstance,

that's where "sh*t" is going too.

No matter if

you're tired of taking somebody's sh*t

or you're taking one yourself,

remember, "sh*t" is the great equalizer.

No matter your race,

your religion or creed,

king or peasant,

everybody shits!

…iiiiit!

- [crowd cheering and applauding]

- That's it.

Call The Guinness Book of World Records.

That's it. I'm done.