Ever wonder where the word SHIT comes from?

Well, here it is:

Certain types of manure used to be transported (as everything was years ago) by ship.

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 discovered what was happening. After that, the bundles of manure

were always stamped with the term "S.H.I.T" on them which meant to the sailors to

"Ship High In Transit."

In other words, 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.

Bet you didn't know the history of that word.

Neither did we.

We always thought it was a golf term.

2) Brass Monkeys

In the heyday of the Sailing ship, every ship had to have a cannon for protection. Cannon of the times required round iron cannon balls. The master wanted to store the cannonballs such that they could be of instant use when needed, yet not roll around the gun deck.

The solution was to stack them in a square-based pyramid next to the cannon. The top level of the stack had one ball, the next level down had four, the next had nine, the next had 16, and so on. Four levels would provide a stack of 30 cannonballs.

The only real problem was how to keep the bottom level from sliding out from under the weight of the higher levels. To do this, they devised a small plate ("monkey") with one rounded indentation for each cannonball in the bottom layer .

When iron was used to make this plate ("monkey") the cannonballs would rust to the plate. As a result, these plates were made of brass to prevent this problem-thus the "brass monkey."

When temperature falls, brass contracts in size faster than iron. As it got cold on the gun decks, the indentations in the brass monkey would get smaller than the iron cannonballs they were holding. If the temperature got cold enough, the bottom layer would pop out of the indentations spilling the entire pyramid over the deck.