Shits and Giggles Origin and Meaning

[docmartens]

Does anyone know the origin and meaning of the Phrase "For Shits and
Giggles"?

[Martin Ambuhl]

docmartens wrote:
> Does anyone know the origin and meaning of the Phrase "For Shits and
> Giggles"?

Austin Powers, I believe.

[Martin Ambuhl]

docmartens wrote:
> Does anyone know the origin and meaning of the Phrase "For Shits and
> Giggles"?
>

STFW. For the origin, use "Austin Powers";
for the meaning, use "shits and giggles".

[Don A. Gilmore]

"docmartens" <jgin...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1109259817.9...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

> Does anyone know the origin and meaning of the Phrase "For Shits and
> Giggles"?

I just means, "for the hell of it", implying whimsey.

Don
Kansas City

[Skitt]

Murray Arnow wrote:

> "For shits and grins" has been around as long as my memory serves.
>
> The origin of this "for shits and giggles" has a history of erudite
> discussion:
>
> http://p066.ezboard.com/fwordoriginsorgfrm1.showMessage?topicID=11580.
> topic
>
> or
>
> http://snipurl.com/d0vx

I remember encountering the phrase at least twenty years ago. Maybe longer.
I definitely remember someone from Wisconsin using it. I have used it in
this group, just for shits and giggles.
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/

[rban...@shaw.ca]

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 16:29:39 GMT, ar...@iname.com (Murray Arnow)
wrote:

>"For shits and grins" has been around as long as my memory serves.
>
>The origin of this "for shits and giggles" has a history of erudite
>discussion:
>
>http://p066.ezboard.com/fwordoriginsorgfrm1.showMessage?topicID=11580.
>topic
>
>or
>
>http://snipurl.com/d0vx

I thought the links might give me a GIF of Kerry and Edwards, but no
such luck, and no explanation either, that I could see. My brother
once startled me by exclaiming "Shit & Derision", which he said was
common in the Parachute Regiment. He said it was rather stronger than
"Goodness Gracious".

[Joe Fineman]

ar...@iname.com (Murray Arnow) writes:

> The origin of this "for shits and giggles" has a history of erudite
> discussion:

> http://snipurl.com/d0vx

As to the date, the now defunct gay magazine _Bear_ had a department
called "Shits and Giggles: Items of interest" so long ago as 1990, so
the phrase must have been in wide enough circulation to be available
for allusion by that time.
--
--- Joe Fineman jo...@verizon.net

||: Governments and markets are big, dangerous machines. They :||
||: need to be designed, improved, inspected, and maintained. :||

[Evan Kirshenbaum]

Joe Fineman <jo...@verizon.net> writes:

> ar...@iname.com (Murray Arnow) writes:
>
>> The origin of this "for shits and giggles" has a history of erudite
>> discussion:
>
>> http://snipurl.com/d0vx
>
> As to the date, the now defunct gay magazine _Bear_ had a department
> called "Shits and Giggles: Items of interest" so long ago as 1990, so
> the phrase must have been in wide enough circulation to be available
> for allusion by that time.

The first (misspelled) Usenet hit is 10/18/88 in comp.sys.ibm.pc:

I was running my computer with a TRS-80 PC2 Pocket Computer this
way just for shits and gigles.

<URL:http://groups-beta.google.com/group/
comp.sys.ibm.pc/msg/c6f254755638e968>

"Shits and grins", surprisingly, doesn't show up until a bit later, on
3/25/89 in rec.music.gaffa.

--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Society in every state is a blessing,
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |but government, even in its best
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |state is but a necessary evil; in its
|worst state, an intolerable one.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | Thomas Paine
(650)857-7572

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

[paul.in...@gmail.com]

It's very much older than the Austin Powers movies. Some references attribute it as a vulgarization of 'kicks and giggles'.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2015-10-03 14:41:41 +0000, paul.in...@gmail.com said:

> It's very much older than the Austin Powers movies. Some references
> attribute it as a vulgarization of 'kicks and giggles'.

We seem to be in the middle of another outbreak of google gropers
reviving old threads without any context. I wonder if there is a virus
that causes periodic attacks.


--
athel

[Peter T. Daniels]

GG quotes the post being replied to, so that even those with inadequate
servers would see when the last message was posted.

The outbreak is, as usual, among gmailers.

[Peter Moylan]

No. GG _allows_ one to quote what was being replied to, but it does not
insist on it. The people who revive ancient threads never seem to take
advantage of this facility.

I've just looked at the header lines of the message in question, and
there is no indication whatsoever of the date of the message being
responded to. To find that out I would have to fire up a web browser to
look at Google Groups, and that's a nuisance so I won't do it. It was
even a nuisance checking to see whether the message had a "References:"
line.

For most people, the only indication that this isn't the beginning of a
new thread is the "Re:" in the subject line. And even that's unreliable,
since many spammers (among others) put "Re:" in the subject even when
it's not a reply to anything. I suspect that many people think that
"Re:" means much the same as "LOL": a meaningless code that has
something to do with e-mail.

> The outbreak is, as usual, among gmailers.

Perhaps; but only ever those gmailers who post through Google Groups.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Sunday, October 4, 2015 at 9:38:51 PM UTC-4, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 2015-Oct-04 03:49, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Saturday, October 3, 2015 at 12:00:15 PM UTC-4, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> >> On 2015-10-03 14:41:41 +0000, paul.in...@gmail.com said:
> >>
> >>> It's very much older than the Austin Powers movies. Some references
> >>> attribute it as a vulgarization of 'kicks and giggles'.
> >>
> >> We seem to be in the middle of another outbreak of google gropers
> >> reviving old threads without any context. I wonder if there is a virus
> >> that causes periodic attacks.
> >
> > GG quotes the post being replied to, so that even those with inadequate
> > servers would see when the last message was posted.
>
> No. GG _allows_ one to quote what was being replied to, but it does not
> insist on it. The people who revive ancient threads never seem to take
> advantage of this facility.

Well, I don't find a Keyboard Shortcut for telling it not to.

I have to Post this before I can look at the "global settings."

[Charles Bishop]

In article <musk7f$25f$1...@dont-email.me>,

To me this means that it's Google Groups that's the source. However, is
it likely that someone who used GG for news would only have a Gmail
eddress?

--
charles

[Richard Tobin]

In article <ctbishop-481BED...@news.individual.net>,

Charles Bishop <ctbi...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>To me this means that it's Google Groups that's the source. However, is
>it likely that someone who used GG for news would only have a Gmail
>eddress?

It's likely that a user who inadvertently replies to an ancient
article is an inexperienced user, who has recently signed up to Google
and hasn't even considered configuring Google Groups to use a
non-Google email address.

-- Richard

[David Kleinecke]

Speaking as someone who uses gmail for my e-mail and google groups for
all my access to AUE:

It seems clear to me that these odd posts come from someone who did a
search - using google search - and got a hit from somewhere in the groups
archives. They were moved to reply to the hit without knowing what they
were doing (it's clear when you get a search hit that you have hit a
groups post - but not obvious unless you know what is going on). We have
never seen a second post from one of these sporadics and I think they
don't really know where their reply went. They may be expecting a reply
by e-mail.

If that is the case there is no use trying to educate them within AUE.
If I were charitable enough I would send a reply to their gmail address.

[Adam Funk]

Well anyway, having come across this, the AmE expression I'm familiar
with is "for shits and grins".


--
A heretic is someone who shares ALMOST all your beliefs.
Kill him. --- Ivan Stang

[Peter T. Daniels]

I don't see how that's possible, since GG shows the thousands of threads in
the newsgroup with the one most recently added to at the top. To get to one
that's 20 years old you'd have to page through hundreds of pages.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Tuesday, October 6, 2015 at 4:00:11 PM UTC-4, Adam Funk wrote:
> On 2015-10-03, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>
> > On 2015-10-03 14:41:41 +0000, paul.in...@gmail.com said:
> >
> >> It's very much older than the Austin Powers movies. Some references
> >> attribute it as a vulgarization of 'kicks and giggles'.
> >
> > We seem to be in the middle of another outbreak of google gropers
> > reviving old threads without any context. I wonder if there is a virus
> > that causes periodic attacks.
>
> Well anyway, having come across this, the AmE expression I'm familiar
> with is "for shits and grins".

"Shits and giggles." Where did you get yours? I first (AFAIK) heard it from
a Hoosier/Texan (don't know where he got it from).

[Richard Tobin]

In article <66109574-dd2d-46d6...@googlegroups.com>,

Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

>> It's likely that a user who inadvertently replies to an ancient
>> article is an inexperienced user, who has recently signed up to Google
>> and hasn't even considered configuring Google Groups to use a
>> non-Google email address.

>I don't see how that's possible, since GG shows the thousands of threads in
>the newsgroup with the one most recently added to at the top. To get to one
>that's 20 years old you'd have to page through hundreds of pages.

Or use the search function.

-- Richard

[RH Draney]

Note also that an album by Terry Foy, aka Zilch the Torysteller, is
titled "For Gits and Shiggles"...Zilch recites such stories as
Goldilocks, Cinderella, and Romeo & Juliet in spoonerism....

Foy is originally from Mankato, Minnesota....r

[Adam Funk]

From a fellow Virginian --- I don't know where he got it from, but I
think he has relatives in Indiana or perhaps a bit further west.

--
Civilization is a race between catastrophe and education.
[H G Wells]

[Peter T. Daniels]

Not _within_ GG. First they'd have to know that such a thing exists.

The out-of-the-box GG search gives results based on "relevance," though
there's no hint what that is, but it doesn't tend to put 20-year-old hits
first. If you then switch to "by date," it puts the most recent one first.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Wednesday, October 7, 2015 at 7:15:07 AM UTC-4, Adam Funk wrote:
> On 2015-10-07, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Tuesday, October 6, 2015 at 4:00:11 PM UTC-4, Adam Funk wrote:
> >> > On 2015-10-03 14:41:41 +0000, paul.in...@gmail.com said:

> >> >> It's very much older than the Austin Powers movies. Some references
> >> >> attribute it as a vulgarization of 'kicks and giggles'.

> >> Well anyway, having come across this, the AmE expression I'm familiar
> >> with is "for shits and grins".
> > "Shits and giggles." Where did you get yours? I first (AFAIK) heard it from
> > a Hoosier/Texan (don't know where he got it from).
>
> From a fellow Virginian --- I don't know where he got it from, but I
> think he has relatives in Indiana or perhaps a bit further west.

Aha! But if it's an Indiana thing, it ought to have turned up in Chicago
once in a while. I once asked my source to remind me what the rest of his
expression "shits and" was, which fixed both the word and the source for me.

[Adam Funk]

IME it's not a very common expression; AFAIK the friends of mine who
use it all got it from that same guy.


--
I was born, lucky me, in a land that I love.
Though I'm poor, I am free.
When I grow I shall fight; for this land I shall die.
May the sun never set. --- The Kinks

[David Kleinecke]

As I said elsewhere in this thread. Almost certainly they pick up
the reference in a search.

And why should I "even considered configuring Google Groups to use a
non-Google email address.:?

[David Kleinecke]

Not GG search. The main Google search.

[Jerry Friedman]

On Tuesday, October 6, 2015 at 2:00:11 PM UTC-6, Adam Funk wrote:
> On 2015-10-03, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>
> > On 2015-10-03 14:41:41 +0000, paul.in...@gmail.com said:
> >
> >> It's very much older than the Austin Powers movies. Some references
> >> attribute it as a vulgarization of 'kicks and giggles'.
> >
> > We seem to be in the middle of another outbreak of google gropers
> > reviving old threads without any context. I wonder if there is a virus
> > that causes periodic attacks.
>
> Well anyway, having come across this, the AmE expression I'm familiar
> with is "for shits and grins".

I've heard both.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Peter T. Daniels]

Do Google searches tend to put 20-year-old results not backed by advertising
at the top of the hit list?

[David Kleinecke]

If you seek a relatively obscure subject. Being that kind of a guy I see
them frequently. I think Google is sensitive to the number of times a
post is referenced and being in a group thread, even twenty years ago,
will often induce a lot of reference.

[Richard Tobin]

In article <b7f98a19-53a3-46ba...@googlegroups.com>,

Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

>The out-of-the-box GG search gives results based on "relevance," though
>there's no hint what that is, but it doesn't tend to put 20-year-old hits
>first. If you then switch to "by date," it puts the most recent one first.

When we discussed this a few months ago, I gave an example where a
plausible search in the "out-of-the-box GG search" did give the the
ancient article in question at or near the top. Unfortunately Google
Groups search is so rubbish now that I can't find it.

-- Richard

[Adam Funk]

Well, they're semantically similar. I'm *almost* sure I haven't heard
the "giggles" version until now.


--
Why is it drug addicts and computer afficionados are both
called users? --- Clifford Stoll

[Charles Bishop]

In article <54156a44-a84b-4a9a...@googlegroups.com>,

I don't know, and that was why I asked. I have a non-gmail eddress, and
at some point I was reading newsgroups with the help of GG since I
didn't have a newsreader. I don't remember if I just read the groups or
just posted to them. If I had posted to them, I assume my email address
would show my earthlink one.

PTD goes on and on that it's gmail users that are responsible for
posting/replying to old aue posts. He seems to think that it's the fact
that they use gmail that is the cause of the old posts showing up and
won't be swayed. Some have pointed out that the likely solution is
people searching for a topic in Google and a post in aue comes up. Since
GG archives old posts, they see a post in GG.

Seeking more information, they comment on the post, post their reply and
it shows up here. The supposition is that they are GG users, and so
probably have gmail addresses. The theory is that they are newbies of a
sort, don't recognize a usenet newsgroup and reply as if they were
elsewhere.

The question then is, why do all (most?) of them have gmail eddresses?

--
charles

[Tony Cooper]

I don't know how Google Groups work, but it's entirely possible that
these people have non-gmail addresses, but *also* have a gmail address
that they use to sign up for Google Groups.

I can't determine if you have to have a gmail address to use GG
because I routinely use a gmail address and do not have another
address.
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Thursday, October 8, 2015 at 11:59:40 PM UTC-4, Tony Cooper wrote:

> I can't determine if you have to have a gmail address to use GG
> because I routinely use a gmail address and do not have another
> address.

Obviously, one does not.

[Tony Cooper]

Why would that be obvious? You do not post using a gmail address, but
that does not mean you don't have one.

I actually do have a second email address but I don't know what it is.
My internet provider issued me an email address when I signed up, but
I don't know what it is. Because I've had the same internet provider
for several years, I couldn't begin to be able to find it.

[Cheryl]

I've got a few email addresses I never use, including the one from my
ISP and a gmail address. A year or two ago, someone was going to share a
Youtube video with me - a private one - and although she only had my
regular email address, Youtube, perhaps naturally, sent the notice that
I could view this video to my gmail address and it was months before I
realized that she hadn't merely forgotten to send me the link

--
Cheryl

[Richard Tobin]

In article <4c3ba354-e7d5-41a3...@googlegroups.com>,

Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

>> I can't determine if you have to have a gmail address to use GG
>> because I routinely use a gmail address and do not have another
>> address.

>Obviously, one does not.

It's obvious - since you are an example - that you can post from GG
using a non-gmail address, but less obvious that you can you do it
without having one. I just tried and it does seem to be possible to
create a Google account with a non-Google email address, but I didn't
go all the way through the process.

-- Richard

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Friday, October 9, 2015 at 12:34:15 AM UTC-4, Tony Cooper wrote:
> On Thu, 8 Oct 2015 21:13:16 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >On Thursday, October 8, 2015 at 11:59:40 PM UTC-4, Tony Cooper wrote:
> >
> >> I can't determine if you have to have a gmail address to use GG
> >> because I routinely use a gmail address and do not have another
> >> address.
> >
> >Obviously, one does not.
>
> Why would that be obvious? You do not post using a gmail address, but
> that does not mean you don't have one.

If I had one, why wouldn't I use it?

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Friday, October 9, 2015 at 6:50:02 AM UTC-4, Richard Tobin wrote:
> In article <4c3ba354-e7d5-41a3...@googlegroups.com>,
> Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

[no, he did not]

[Richard Tobin]

In article <a88e6594-899a-49c5...@googlegroups.com>,

Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

>> Why would that be obvious? You do not post using a gmail address, but
>> that does not mean you don't have one.

>If I had one, why wouldn't I use it?

I have one but don't use it for usenet because I have been using the
same address for 25 years and don't wish to change it. I expect many
other people are in a similar position.

-- Richard

[Tony Cooper]

On Fri, 9 Oct 2015 06:04:39 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"

<gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

>On Friday, October 9, 2015 at 12:34:15 AM UTC-4, Tony Cooper wrote:
>> On Thu, 8 Oct 2015 21:13:16 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
>> <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> >On Thursday, October 8, 2015 at 11:59:40 PM UTC-4, Tony Cooper wrote:
>> >
>> >> I can't determine if you have to have a gmail address to use GG
>> >> because I routinely use a gmail address and do not have another
>> >> address.
>> >
>> >Obviously, one does not.
>>
>> Why would that be obvious? You do not post using a gmail address, but
>> that does not mean you don't have one.
>
>If I had one, why wouldn't I use it?

The above forces me to choke back a number of snarky replies. Trying
to figure out why you wouldn't do something when at your computer is
an impossible task considering that you have the ability to use Google
to verify a statement and the ability to open provided links...and
often do not do either.

>
>> I actually do have a second email address but I don't know what it is.
>> My internet provider issued me an email address when I signed up, but
>> I don't know what it is. Because I've had the same internet provider
>> for several years, I couldn't begin to be able to find it.

[Richard Bollard]

Puts hand up. I have a gmail address that I can access from remote
computers. I post using my work email and don't access Usenet on my
private devices.
--
Richard Bollard
Canberra Australia

To email, I'm at AMT not spAMT.

[snide...@gmail.com]

You mean this one?
<URL:https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.usage.english/aJjXMAgS5HA/GWHwuuFPigIJ>

If so, the search URL was
<URL:https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topicsearchin/alt.usage.english/GG$20AND$20search$20AND$20top$20AND$20authorname$3Atobin$20AND$20after$3A2014$2F07$2F01$20AND$20before$3Atoday>

which was generated by using the advance search option (if you remember the keywords, you can do it by hand). The advance search option is available at the top of the GG page /if you use the tic mark/ to drop down its dialog box.

If that's the wrong message, let me know a good bet on a word you typed in the message, or a better estimate of the date limits. My search as specified turned up 3 threads; this one, the April one, and a July entry.

/dps "seems like a piece of cake so far"

[Peter Moylan]

It is for precisely this reason that I run my own mail server. Each time
I change ISP, the mail address given to me by the ISP disappears, so
there's no point in using such addresses. Creating my own domain is
inexpensive and guarantees that I'm in charge of allocating the e-mail
addresses.

I do have a university e-mail address at the moment, but sooner or later
someone in the IT department is going to notice that I'm no longer on
the staff.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

[Peter Moylan]

On 2015-Oct-07 05:23, David Kleinecke wrote:

> It seems clear to me that these odd posts come from someone who did a
> search - using google search - and got a hit from somewhere in the groups
> archives. They were moved to reply to the hit without knowing what they
> were doing (it's clear when you get a search hit that you have hit a
> groups post - but not obvious unless you know what is going on). We have
> never seen a second post from one of these sporadics and I think they
> don't really know where their reply went. They may be expecting a reply
> by e-mail.

With this in mind, I've just e-mailed the OP to tell him that this
thread exists. Perhaps we should do this every time someone responds to
an ancient post.

[Richard Tobin]

In article <mvl949$am2$1...@dont-email.me>,

Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

>It is for precisely this reason that I run my own mail server. Each time
>I change ISP, the mail address given to me by the ISP disappears, so
>there's no point in using such addresses. Creating my own domain is
>inexpensive and guarantees that I'm in charge of allocating the e-mail
>addresses.

For those less technically confident, it's possible to pay a small
amount for an email address (with POP or IMAP access) independent of
any ISP.

-- Richard

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

Yes. As I do.

I use Easyspace.com. I bought a domain name through them and pay a
monthly fee to use their email server using an email address in my
domain.

I mainly use POP to send and receive messages using the mail client on a
PC but I can use their web interface to send and receive email.

If I decide to move to another mail and website hosting service my
domain would go with me.

The Easyspace service is aimed at businesses but is perfectly good for
personal users.
https://www.easyspace.com/


--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Snidely]

On Thursday, Charles Bishop exclaimed wildly:

> David Kleinecke <dklei...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> And why should I "even considered configuring Google Groups to use a
>> non-Google email address.:?
>
> I don't know, and that was why I asked. I have a non-gmail eddress, and
> at some point I was reading newsgroups with the help of GG since I
> didn't have a newsreader. I don't remember if I just read the groups or
> just posted to them. If I had posted to them, I assume my email address
> would show my earthlink one.
>

You don't seem to have posted to AUE from GG, but 16 months ago you
were using a gmail address in TOG.

/dps

--
"That's a good sort of hectic, innit?"

" Very much so, and I'd recommend the haggis wontons."
-njm

[Charles Bishop]

In article <mn.78227dfa4febe3dc.127094@snitoo>,

Snidely <snide...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thursday, Charles Bishop exclaimed wildly:
> > David Kleinecke <dklei...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> And why should I "even considered configuring Google Groups to use a
> >> non-Google email address.:?
> >
> > I don't know, and that was why I asked. I have a non-gmail eddress, and
> > at some point I was reading newsgroups with the help of GG since I
> > didn't have a newsreader. I don't remember if I just read the groups or
> > just posted to them. If I had posted to them, I assume my email address
> > would show my earthlink one.
> >
>
> You don't seem to have posted to AUE from GG, but 16 months ago you
> were using a gmail address in TOG.
>
> /dps

Hmmm. Do you suppose PTD is correct? I've never willingly had a gmail
address, and was reading newsgroups (and presumably posting) using GG
until I installed NewsWatcher. I think I even posted in TOG that I no
longer had access to NW because I had upgraded to 10.something, but then
someone told me that NW was supported by 10.something.

Contents of memory may have settled during transit.

--
charles

[noah...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, February 24, 2005 at 7:43:38 AM UTC-8, docmartens wrote:
> Does anyone know the origin and meaning of the Phrase "For Shits and
> Giggles"?

I never saw Austin Powers and did not know it was used in the movie...
I have used Shits and giggles for over 40 years... I was born in Milwaukee... used the term when I was 10 years old.