# bullshit **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 23, 2000, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit/30438 "2000-08-23T13:59:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Milossarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Milossarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milossarian)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2000, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit/30438/1 "2000-08-23T13:59:27Z")
How and when did this term come to mean a statement one doesn’t believe? Why this particular animal excrement and not others? Is ‘bullshit’ also a term of disbelief in other culture’s languages? If not, what is their term? ---
**Author:** ![Tymp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Tymp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tymp)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2000, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit/30438/2 "2000-08-23T14:17:29Z")
Of course, “horseshit” is also commonly used to convey the same idea of disbelief. My favorite non-excrement related expression of this type is “hogwash”. ---
**Author:** ![Astroglide](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6de8d8/32.png) [@Astroglide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astroglide)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2000, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit/30438/3 "2000-08-23T14:21:58Z")
Bullshit is usually translated (in movies) as _kusotare_. This is an angry “bullshit”. Literal bullshit is _ushiunko_. It’s not used as a term of disbelief. _ushi_ is bull. _unko_ is shit. To describe a person who is bullshit (i.e. full of shit) a good term is _horafuki_. Since “bullshit” is used so many different ways in English - like most curse words - it’s hard to get a one-to-one translation. ---
**Author:** ![RM\_Mentock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@RM\_Mentock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RM_Mentock)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2000, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit/30438/4 "2000-08-23T16:10:13Z")
Well hotshit, the board ain’t exactly apeshit over this one, but at least it’s not dogshit. Hey, gimme some of that, that’s good shit–I don’t wanna drink any of this fishshit. I feel like cowshit. Peace, remember, we’re all just starshit. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2000, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit/30438/5 "2000-08-23T17:55:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tymp \* > \*\*Of course, “horseshit” is also commonly used to convey the same idea of disbelief. My favorite non-excrement related expression of this type is “hogwash”. \*\* Actually, I’ve usually heard the reply “Ah, horseshit!” to mean sort of like “F\*\*\* you”, rather than expressing doubts about the truth of what was said. ---
**Author:** ![funneefarmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9fc348/32.png) [@funneefarmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/funneefarmer)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2000, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit/30438/6 "2000-08-23T21:31:49Z")
From [http://www.m-w.com](http://www.m-w.com) "Main Entry: 1bull·shit Pronunciation: 'bul-"shit also 'b&l- Function: noun Etymology: 1bull & 6bull Date: circa 1915 usually vulgar : NONSENSE; especially : foolish insolent talk " Also… "Main Entry: 6bull Function: noun Etymology: perhaps from obsolete bull to mock Date: 1640 1 : a grotesque blunder in language 2 slang : empty boastful talk 3 slang : NONSENSE 2 " And even further back… "Main Entry: 5bull Date: 1609 transitive senses slang : to fool especially by fast boastful talk intransitive senses, slang : to engage in idle and boastful talk " ---
**Author:** ![Milossarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Milossarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milossarian)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2000, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit/30438/7 "2000-08-24T03:42:36Z")
Thanks for finding the ‘when,’ but the ‘why’ is still kind of unclear to me. Seems like horses, cows, chickens and sheep would have been more prevalent, and thus more likely to have their poop immortalized in such a way. ---
**Author:** ![darkcool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f8ce5/32.png) [@darkcool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/darkcool)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2000, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit/30438/8 "2000-08-24T08:04:32Z")
Indian (counter-spy like) trackers used to send cowboys who were looking for Indians to harm on the trail of free roaming cattle claiming it to be from the Indian’s horses. And of course the Indians would get away slicker’n owl shit all the while grinnin’ like a possom eatin’ shit out of a coke bottle. I always took horseshit to mean not so much ‘f\*\*k you’ as ‘you don’t know what you’re talking about’ as opposed to BS which usually means you are intentionally lying. In Texas, a common phrase for a hangover is feeling like “40 foot of stomped out buzzard shit”. Once I saw “frogshit” written as graffiti -still cracks me up. The thing is on questions like this, it’s got to be something. Why NOT bullshit? Why do they use green to mean ‘go’ on traffic lights? No real reason, it’s got to be some color. And that’s no duckshit. ---
**Author:** ![Mustapha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Mustapha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mustapha)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2000, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit/30438/9 "2000-08-24T10:54:10Z")
When in polite society, use “male bovine excretia”. ---
**Author:** ![Sledman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@Sledman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sledman)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2000, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit/30438/10 "2000-08-24T13:47:45Z")
Milo, Chickenshit has been immortalized in this fashion. All be it a different meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2000, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit/30438/11 "2000-08-24T17:03:50Z")
Just as practically any animal is likened to a human trait (he/she is a fox/dog/bantam/sloth/mouse/snake), so too is those animals’ excrement used in different ways, but almost universally negative. In _Citizen Soldiers_, Stephen Ambrose (with ample help from Paul Fussell) closely defines one common military term: \*The guys who were permanent jerks were the usual suspects – officers with too much authority and too few brains, sergeants who had more than a touch of sadist in their characters, far too many quartermasters, some MPs. The types were many in number and widely varied in how they acted out their role, but the GIs had a single word that applied to every one of them: chickenshit. Fussell defines the term precisely. “Chickenshit refers to behavior that makes military life worse than it need be: petty harassment of the weak by the strong; open scrimmage for power and authority and prestige…insistence on the letter rather than the spirit of ordinances. Chickenshit is so called – instead of horse – or bull – or elephant shit – because it is small-minded and ignoble and takes the trivial seriously. Chickenshit can be recognized instantly because it never has anything to do with winning the war.” \* And shortly after this passage, one of my favorite statements in military history: “General Patton had more than a bit of the chickenshit in him.” ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2000, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit/30438/12 "2000-08-24T17:24:21Z")
Note a mistake: sloth was laziness before _Bradypus_ spp. was a sloth. The word comes from _slow_ + _th_. ---
**Author:** ![Bad\_Hat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f0a364/32.png) [@Bad\_Hat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bad_Hat)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2000, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit/30438/13 "2000-08-24T20:50:42Z")
any body else find it funny that saying something is “SHIT” is an insult, but saying it is “THE SHIT” is a high compliment, at least in youth culture? ---
**Author:** ![funneefarmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9fc348/32.png) [@funneefarmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/funneefarmer)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2000, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullshit/30438/14 "2000-08-25T00:08:20Z")
I finally found some definitive shit… [“On Bullshit” Harry Frankfurt-Princeton University](http://cpcug.org/user/jelks/misc/articles/bs.html) The most authoritative shit on bullshit.