Manure: In the 16th and 17th centuries, everything had to be transported by ship and 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 lan tern, 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', 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 ' , (Ship High In Transport) which has come down through the centuries and is in use to this very day.

You probably did not know the true history of this word..

Neither did I. I had always thought it was a computer term!

PS To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. --- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Prominent Transcendentalists included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, as well as Bronson Alcott, Orestes Brownson, William Ellery Channing, Frederick Henry Hedge, Theodore Parker, George Putnam, Elizabeth Peabody, and Sophia Peabody, the wife of Nathaniel Hawthorne. For a time, Peabody and Hawthorne lived at the Brook Farm Transcendentalist utopian commune.

what does transcendentalism mean? and the utopian commune?

"Manure is organic matter used as fertilizer in agriculture."
"Animal manure is often a mixture of animal's feces and bedding straw, as in this example from a stable."

A true story?.. I highly doubt it...
Take a look at this article at snopes:
Link
Never mind, forget snopes, you should have looked in a dictionary -online or not- before taking this bull manure for granted and posting here. Try wiktionary.
Sorry, I don't mean to be harsh. Thinking again, I mean to be harsh. Things like ships in high transit, or fornication under the consent of the king, are simply not true. For gosh sake, this is a language board!
Ok now I'll be quiet.

Believe it, or not....the whole thing sounds very reasonable..
if you can support your smirk with qualified ethimological proof, let us see it !

repeating post - cancelled

Wikipedia has this thing against me...I dont know why!

Or maybe Omega your just full of Ship High In Transport.