In the 'Did you ever wonder' file...

Who invented the term 'shit load'?  And what is it exactly?


I found myself wondering about this today.  I said, 'I have a shit load of work to do.'


And really, why does a shit load mean a lot?  Was it named after someone's particularly large shits?  Like is it descended from viking times when some large warrior named Thorgrim had a particularly humongous excrement and his clan said, 'What a huge load! Oh my goodness Thorgrim leaves extremely large loads of shit in the latrine! Don't go to the bog after him!'


And over the years, as it happens, rather than referring to it as 'Thorgrim's large load of shit' when describing something massive, it was shortened to 'shit load.'


Because obviously most people's shits aren't anything to really worry about I would've thought.  If your boss said, 'you've got a shit load of work before you go on vacation' and then dumped a regular sized turd in your file, you'd think, 'oh, that's not so bad. At least it's not an elephant bollocks load.  That would've been troubling.'