# "Shit & Corruption" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 27, 2015, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shit-corruption/720930 "2015-05-27T02:29:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SanDiegoTim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@SanDiegoTim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanDiegoTim)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shit-corruption/720930/1 "2015-05-27T02:29:05Z")
That’s an expression my father used. I’m talking back in the 1950’s. Anyone ever hear it being used? Anyone have any insite to its meaning/origin? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shit-corruption/720930/2 "2015-05-27T02:37:37Z")
Never heard that’n. A good friend of mine liked to say “Shit, Piss, and Industrial Waste.” (And this was decades before the album by Leech Woman!) I don’t know exactly what the rules are here about linking to another discussion board, but if you Google, you’ll probably find the same thing I found, which was a discussion of the phrase “Shit, Piss, and Corruption,” with a claim that Harbard Celine mutated it to “Shit, Piss, and Industrial Waste.” Who the hell is Hagbard Celine? Apparently a character in the Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson. Amazing where Google will lead a soul! ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shit-corruption/720930/3 "2015-05-27T04:24:41Z")
You two are getting there, but you’ve fallen short. 🙂 The whole phrase as I learned it is “fuck, shit, piss, and corruption.” The meaning is essentially the same as “oh fuck,” “shit,” “dammit,” etc. – expressing disappointment at something gone wrong. I have no idea of the origin of the phrase as a unit. ---
**Author:** ![SeldomSeen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@SeldomSeen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeldomSeen)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shit-corruption/720930/4 "2015-05-27T15:26:33Z")
An elderly friend of mine, a native Texan and master of colorful idiom was wont to use a variation of this… “blood, shit & corruption”. Basically it denoted the result of a massive f\*\*k-up, the aftermath of a train wreck, the fallout from a political scandal or the like. e.g.; “The offender fled the scene of the crime, leaving bystanders to deal with the blood- shit -n- corruption”. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shit-corruption/720930/5 "2015-05-27T16:10:40Z")
“Shit and Corruption” was a favourite expression – basically indicating annoyance / exasperation – of associates of mine at university in England in the late 1960s. A less-common variant in that milieu, was “Shit and Derision”. I’m inclined to feel that the less meaningful or sense-making such expletives are, the more satisfying they are to use. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shit-corruption/720930/6 "2015-05-28T10:52:00Z")
In the late 60s, maybe into the early 70s, I heard ‘shite and abortion’ quite a lot. I’ve never heard ‘shit and corruption’ but, having read the thread, I’d assume the phrase I heard is a variant. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shit-corruption/720930/7 "2015-05-28T12:47:32Z")
Am I to take it that all posters upthread are Brits (except, perhaps, the guy that never heard of it)? Since you’re all here, is this current, out of date, or, since the character is shown to use florid curses elsewhere, a coinage? O! Mr Dedalus cried, giving vent to a hopeless groan. Shite and onions! It’s from _Ulysses_ (natch), set in in Dublin 1904… ---
**Author:** ![SanDiegoTim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@SanDiegoTim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanDiegoTim)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shit-corruption/720930/8 "2015-05-28T12:51:08Z")
The word “corruption” seems somewhat out of place with the others as an expression of dismay. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shit-corruption/720930/9 "2015-05-28T17:33:08Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Am I to take it that all posters upthread are Brits (except, perhaps, the guy that never heard of it)? Not I, I’m a Yank. ---
**Author:** ![SeldomSeen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@SeldomSeen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeldomSeen)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shit-corruption/720930/10 "2015-05-28T19:17:17Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Am I to take it that all posters upthread are Brits (except, perhaps, the guy that never heard of it)? Nope. Native Oregonian here… ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shit-corruption/720930/11 "2015-05-28T20:17:46Z")
I believe it goes back to the old meaning of corruption; biological decay. It used to be that if you said a person was corrupted, you weren’t saying he had been bribed - you were saying he had pus leaking out of his infections. So blood, shit, piss, and corruption were the fluids that could leak out of a human being. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shit-corruption/720930/12 "2015-05-28T21:00:17Z")
> [@SanDiegoTim](#): > > The word “corruption” seems somewhat out of place with the others as an expression of dismay. On reading it, I think that’s the point/joke. Corruption is so bad that it’s the worst of the lot. It’s like Mark Twain’s “Lies, damn lies and statistics” quote. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shit-corruption/720930/13 "2015-05-28T22:01:21Z")
> [@Gary\_T](#): > > Not I, I’m a Yank. > [@SeldomSeen](#): > > Nope. Native Oregonian here… Thanks. Of course I overlooked the Texas friend. But I’m sure as shit if anyone said that around here (NYC) they’d be looked at funny. ---
**Author:** ![Arrendajo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Arrendajo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrendajo)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shit-corruption/720930/14 "2015-05-28T22:17:54Z")
I grew up in Idaho in the '60s. I’m quite familiar with the expression. My brother used “piss shit and corruption” fairly often, usually because he was at least partly responsible for the mess. It seemed like older people used it quite often, which made me think it had been around for a while. Even when I was young it had an anachronistic sense to it. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shit-corruption/720930/15 "2015-05-28T23:07:26Z")
I always heard “Shit fire (pronounced ‘fahr’) and save matches.”