In the 16th and 17th centuries, everything had to be transported by ship. It was also before commercial fertilizer’s invention, so
large shipments of manure were common. It was shipped dry, because in dry form it weighed a lot less than when wet, but once water (at
sea) hit it, it not only became heavier, but the process of
fermentation began again, of which a by product is methane gas.
As the stuff was stored below decks in bundles you can see what could
(and did) happen. Methane began to build up below decks and the first
time someone came below at night with a lantern, BOOOOM! Several
ships were destroyed in this manner before it was determined just
what was happening. After that, the bundles of manure were always
stamped with the term “Ship High In Transit” on them which meant for
the sailors to stow it high enough off the lower decks so that any
water that came into the hold would not touch this volatile cargo
and start the production of methane. Thus evolved the term
“S.H.I.T,” which has come down through the centuries and is in use to
this very day.
No. Shit probably is a loanword from German, which has the word scheiss which means the same thing.
Doubt heavily all word origin stories that depend on a strange acronym or a convoluted chain of events. Etymology (the study of word origins) is rife with absolutely moronic derivation theories. You’ve stumbled on one, but you had the good sense to question it. Good for you. 
Just another urban legend that makes its rounds in e-mail every so often. Check out debunking sites like www.snopes.com when you get something questionable like this.
Ship High In Transit … ROFLMAO!!!
Ive never heard that… that was hilarious! good story to confuse my kids with. Thanks!
Just to pile it on (sorry), the OED says:
“Shite” was the original form.
First citation is c 1308:
Derleth
Doubt heavily all word origin stories that depend on a strange acronym
Agreed: this is one of the several topics covered at the Common Errors in Popular Etymology site.
Folk etomology is all over the place. For example, one version of it claims that the word “barbeque” derives from people cooking animals whole, in other words from “barbe=beard” to “queue representing tail.” You should read the scornful dismissal of this idea in the OED.
By the way, dictionaries give the derivation as being from the American Spanish word “barbacoa” which is a lattice or framework for supporting meat over a fire.
FWIW, transport of significant quantities of manure by ship in the 16th and 17th centuries was pretty much not done. You either used local sources or did without. Compared to today, ship transport was very expensive 400 years ago.
Even the Great Cecil railed against acronyms as far back as 1984.
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_268b.html
Good advice. Indeed, are there any examples of these stories of acronym-derived words that have proved to be true?
Xema, most likely not for any word coined prior to the 20th century, when acronyms first became all the rage.
One of the earliest acronyms, pretty much, was “radar.”
http://www.takeourword.com/Issue063.html
As unlikely as that etymology may seem, the OED says that it’s probably right, and that it dates from 1898.
“modem” is derived from “modulator demodulator”. Not precisely an acronym, but derived in a similar way.
Oddly, participants here should take a look at this thread, which also begins with an after-the-fact explanation of a acronym that has been widely disputed.
Let the threads converge; let the fighting of ignornace spread its wings and fertilize two forums simultaneosly.
Not really.
There are a handful of words that have acronymic derivation, but they usually don’t come with cute stories attached. In addition to the aforementioned radar, laser, sonar, scuba, snafu, and canola are in this category. There’s a number of others, but they are mostly technical.
Modem is probably best described as a blend, since it combines the initial syllables of two words rather than the initial letters of several words. There’s a number of those kinds of words out there too (e.g. napalm, pixel and biopic).
There is one cute story which may or may not be true, and the word involved is indisputably an acronym. That word is awol. The OED doesn’t have any cites for awol dating from before WWI and Merriam-Webster’s gives a WWI era date for it. The story, though, puts it back to the American Civil War.
According to the story, deserters who were returned to their units were given the punishment of having to walk around the camp wearing a sign around their neck. The sign had the letters A W O L on it. Apparently this made them feel shame about going awol.
There is some support for this story, so it may be true. But the word doesn’t seem to have entered the common vernacular at the time, which to me means that it’s not the true origin of the word.
Technically, that’s an urban legend, not folk etymology.
Folk etymology is the process of changing an unfamiliar word into something that looks more familiar (e.g., “hausenblase” into “isinglass”). There’s also the Picketwire River in New Mexico, which is derived from the French “Purgitoire.”
The one word derived from initials from before the twentieth century that I know of is O.K., which can be traced back to 1839. We discussed this before. Do a search on “O.K.,” “acronym,” and “etymology” in the archives and you’ll find a slew of discussions of it.
Actually, is is precisely an acronym. Other examples discussed here are initialisms, a subset of acronyms.
(My favorite initialism is the name of a team that was IDSFA.)
I always understood acronyms to be new words formed from initials while initialisms were spoken as a series of letters. For example, radar (spoken “ray-dar”) is an acronym while IRS (“eye-are-ess”) spoken letter-by-letter is an initialism.
If this is the case, I’m not sure how you’d classify modem, which is word parts and not letters, though “blend” doesn’t seem like a bad term to me.