Horses and bulls make a bit of sense, big animals make big poos. Calling something a big poo means it is very stinky, a huge waste, etc. Very yucky. But bat poos? Those are teeny tiny, small bats make small poos. What do people have against the poos of bats?
Also, what about larger animals? Whale poos are huge, and yaks, buffalos, etc. all make big poos. Don’t ask me how I know.
Bat shit is pretty toxic, and while individual poo is small, bat colonies are absolutely massive and the shit literally piles up as up to millions of bats poop in the same place night after night.
Iirc, the phrase “bat shit crazy” comes from the harvesting of tropical bat guano (poop) for use as a fertliser. The poop is highly toxic, or contains toxic bacteria, which makes the harvesters go a little crazy! Not all bat species have this toxic poop.
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Bullshit is meaningless talk or meaningless tasks.
Horseshit is a falsehood.
Batshit is crazy or deranged.
Dogshit is something low-quality.
Apeshit is out of control angry or excited
Chickenshit means “contemptible.”
Calling someone cowardly was my understanding of chickenshit.
Cowardice is indeed worthy of contempt.
Judge: “I sentence @Nemo@midwest.social to life in jail for making a comment on the internet.”
You: “That’s some bullshit”
Judge: “yes, I agree that’s just meaningless talk”
I mean… It’s poop. Why would there be positive connotations? lol
but why specifically horses, bulls, and bats?
Going to make it a priority to introduce the poo of other animals into my vernacular.
“Did you see that performance last night? Absolutely yakshit!”
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The bat shit I’ve run across is absolutely the worst smelling thing I’ve ever run across. Similar experience to a rotting whale carcass
ah the smell, that makes sense. Never been near bats so I didn’t know about that!
shit sucks
It isn’t just those, but horses and bulls have the biggest poops most people will ever see. So using them as reference for giant piles of unpleasant things makes sense.
Now, batshit? For one, have you ever been near where bats stay? The smell is so fucking intense.
But, bats are also known to flit around in a way that’s erratic when you rarely see their entire flight path. So they have a reputation for being less predictable, or a little crazy. At least that’s my understanding of how bats got referenced for someone being easily distracted, weird, or crazy. You know, “that old lady is a little batty, so don’t be surprised if she forgets to pay you”, or “that dude has bats in his belfry”.
How that got linked too batshit, I’m not certain. Back when I looked it up, the sources we have now didn’t exist., which ima go look the etymology of it up and see if there’s something newer to me. If there is, I’ll come back.
Nah, nothing new. Only thing that I saw this time was batshit probably coming more as a variant of bullshit, with a similar meaning, and then getting tangled up with the idea of being batty. So, in terms of how it would be used, a crazy person isn’t bullshitting because they think what they’re spewing is true, so it’s batshit instead.
Also, I noticed apeshit out there as well. Meaning to lose one’s shit in a violent way. Which, apes tend to look like they’re going apeshit as a dominance/threat display, but tend to not carry through as often as humans do
I was taught that bat shit (guano) is toxic to humans in ways that can make the person “go crazy” before they die. Similar to mercury poisoning and being a “mad hatter” from the days of mercury lined headwear.
Yes I believe that’s true, at least for some species. The poop is collected for use as a fertliser hence the resulting tendancy for infection.
That’s probably true regarding the dangers; but as far as I’ve ever seen, it doesn’t link to the etymology of it at all. Batty or similar things have a fairly established record. Batshit is less than a hundred years old as a term for crazy, and has solid origins in print that aren’t related to that.
Horses, because they used to be everywhere. Step in the street, and you were likely to step in some.
Bull, because it’s very big and smelly and there was usually some around (steer manure is still prized for gardening).
Bats… because it rains from above and is really gross, and you’ve got a high likelihood of getting really sick from it.
Why we don’t go on about pigeon and seagull guano though? I have no idea.
Man that’s some straight gullshit.
That doesn’t sound half as pigeon-shitty as I expected.
Horses and bulls make more sense, English is a quite an old language. The diseases from bat poo sound nasty.
Why we don’t go on about pigeon and seagull guano though? I have no idea.
Mammallist birdshit.
Bat and bird poop can carry diseases such as histoplasmosis.
I love cow dung smell (when it’s not too much of it) - it reminds me of childhood, summer, riding my bike through the fields, etc. Rural stuff.
Now, pig and chicken shit are smelling terribly
