# Past tense of the verb "to shit?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 7, 2005, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-tense-of-the-verb-to-shit/288879 "2005-02-07T22:02:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![peak\_oil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ad7895/32.png) [@peak\_oil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peak_oil)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2005, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-tense-of-the-verb-to-shit/288879/41 "2005-02-09T07:26:35Z")
I’ve always enjoyed pinching a loaf launching a mud rocket dropping a sewer pickle Expelling a column of feces Those are a few of my favorite things Past tense: Pinched a loaf Launched a mud rocket Dropped a sewer pickle Expelled a column of feces ---
**Author:** ![vetbridge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2005, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-tense-of-the-verb-to-shit/288879/42 "2005-02-09T15:07:52Z")
> [@danceswithcats](#): > > Aye, but ye dinna take a shit did ye? Ye left a shit, ye shit. 😉 Language can be soooo melodious. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2005, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-tense-of-the-verb-to-shit/288879/43 "2005-02-09T15:19:11Z")
> [@+MDI](#): > > Shat in my part of England, too. Did not. ---
**Author:** ![EvanS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/59ef9b/32.png) [@EvanS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvanS)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2005, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-tense-of-the-verb-to-shit/288879/44 "2005-02-10T00:00:39Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > There was once a school of thought that said linguistic scholars should be prescriptive instead of descriptive, and dictionaries and grammar books once reflected that, That was basically my point, derived from my antiquated major professor in grad school. So nice we actually agree. ---
**Author:** ![EvanS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/59ef9b/32.png) [@EvanS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvanS)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2005, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-tense-of-the-verb-to-shit/288879/45 "2005-02-10T00:04:44Z")
> [@hazel-rah](#): > > If you don’t like “bullshitted” as the past perfect form of “to bullshit” you could always go with “shot the shit.” Yes. Bullshitted can have a negative connotation, though, as well as the positive equiv. of ‘shot the shit.’ Like “He was bullshitting me” vs. “We were bullshitting.” Mind the context for discernment. ---
**Author:** ![Shrinking\_Violet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@Shrinking\_Violet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shrinking_Violet)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2005, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-tense-of-the-verb-to-shit/288879/46 "2005-02-10T01:19:11Z")
> [@EvanS](#): > > (I thought bathroom humor was left behind upon entering high school… ?) ::giggle:: He said \*\*left behind \*\* in a thread about shit. > [@blowero](#): > > I agree. I’ve never heard the word shit used as a verb without “take”. One does not “shit”, one “takes a shit”. Not in England we don’t - we “have a shit”. It’s already ours. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![TheInterruptingCow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9c0ed/32.png) [@TheInterruptingCow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheInterruptingCow)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2005, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-tense-of-the-verb-to-shit/288879/47 "2005-02-10T03:25:49Z")
Personally, I prefer “download a brown load”, but the past tense just doesn’t roll trippingly off the tongue…as it were… ---
**Author:** ![Gymnopithys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/fbc32d/32.png) [@Gymnopithys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gymnopithys)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2005, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-tense-of-the-verb-to-shit/288879/48 "2005-02-10T10:19:17Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > It certainly is ‘shat’ in my part of the English-speaking world (England). > > I was shat upon by birds\* just the other day, BTW - supposed to be lucky; didn’t feel like it. > > \*[sup]gulls, no less - AKA ‘shitehawks’[/sup] Past of shit ? Defecated 🙂 . I was defecated upon by gulls when visited Farallon Islands. By the way, shitehawks are skuas (genus Stercorarius), also called dung-teaser dung-bird, scait-bird, shite-hawk (in Strangford); Swedish sket, Greek skatos “excrement”, and Gothic skita “to defecate”, and Scot. skite “to mute”, from the widespread belief that skuas harass gulls in order to eat their droppings, while in fact it is the disgorged fish . ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2005, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-tense-of-the-verb-to-shit/288879/49 "2005-02-10T13:21:06Z")
> [@EvanS](#): > > That was basically my point, derived from my antiquated major professor in grad school. So nice we actually agree. Your professor, if he said anything to suggest that “shit” is somehow not a word, was a moron. I’m more inclined to think you’re talking out of your ass here, though. [The Etymology of Some Obscenities](http://www.takeourword.com/et_temp.html) says it’s from the Old English “scitan”, from the Indo-European root “\*-skei”, to separate or divide. I’m not familiar with that website but it jibes well with the etymologies of the word that I’ve heard before (it most assuredly is known back to the Old English period.) > [@EvanS](#): > > Guess I’m a lot older than you Chronos, and steeped in “proper English Usage” of my time, though I have personally overcome it, I would be lax not to fill TTM in on the historical perspective. I’m quite curious where you heard all this bullshit (:)) about “proper English”. What was your major, anyway, in which this professor filled your mind with such falsehood? Language is defined by how it’s used. The people speaking the language are the ones who “created” it, and English survived for many hundreds of years before ruler-bearing teachers and 18th century “grammarians” (and I use that term in scare quotes to point out their tenuous grasp of grammar) came up with the (often arbitrary) rules of “proper English”. I don’t know much about Old English, so I don’t know about the different ablaut paradigms; I normally use “shit” as the past tense, but I’m familiar with “shat” and it may well be the more historically accurate form. There are various forces that conspire to change word forms; it probably shifted on analogy from other words; as has been pointed out, there are words following both paradigms - “sit, sat, sat” and “hit, hit, hit”. ---
**Author:** ![CapnPitt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/edb3f5/32.png) [@CapnPitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CapnPitt)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2005, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-tense-of-the-verb-to-shit/288879/50 "2005-02-10T14:23:19Z")
Etymology from the OED: “The form shite represents OE. \*scítan, pa. tense \*scát, pa. pple. -sciten (in be-sciten), corresponding to OFris. \*skîta (NFris. sk{ibreve}tj, pa. tense skäd, pa. pple. skedden), MLG. schîten, Du. schijten, OHG. scî{hgz}an (MHG. schî{hgz}an, mod.G. scheissen), ON. skíta (MSw. skîta, Da. skide), f. OTeut. root \*sk{imacbreve}t-. The now more common form shit is influenced by the pa. pple. or the related n.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/past-tense-of-the-verb-to-shit/288879.md?page=2)