See also
Look up shit happens in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
- Murphy's law – Adage typically stated as: "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong"
- Butterfly effect – Idea that small causes can have large effects
Shit happens is a slang sentence that is used as a simple existential observation that life is full of unfortunate unpredictable events, similar to "c'est la vie". The sentence is an acknowledgment that bad things happen to people seemingly for no particular reason. [1] [2]
It can also be said less vulgarly, including phrases such as "it happens" or "stuff happens". [3]
The fact that people have been remarking that shit happens has been attested from 1964, when Carl Werthman quoted an example in his UC Berkeley masters thesis; the relevant excerpt was published in The American City (edited by Anselm L. Strauss) in 1968. [4]
In 2011, Australian politician Tony Abbott, who was at the time Opposition Leader and leader of the Liberal Party (later becoming Prime Minister), used the sentence in an interview. [5] [6]
Shit is an English-language profanity. As a noun, it refers to fecal matter, and as a verb it means to defecate; in the plural, it means diarrhea. Shite is a common variant in British and Irish English. As a slang term, shit has many meanings, including: nonsense, foolishness, something of little value or quality, trivial and usually boastful or inaccurate talk or a contemptible person. It could also be used to refer to any other noun in general or as an expression of annoyance, surprise or anger.
Jamil Abdullah al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, is a human rights activist, Muslim Cleric, Islamic separatist, and convicted murderer who was the fifth chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s. During a short-lived alliance between SNCC and the Black Panther Party, he served as their minister of justice.
Mary Katherine "Mary Kay" Fualaau, was an American sex offender and teacher who pleaded guilty in 1997 to two counts of felony second-degree rape of a child. The child, Vili Fualaau, was 12 years old when sexual relations first occurred. He had been her sixth-grade student at an elementary school in Burien, Washington. While awaiting sentencing, she gave birth to Fualaau's daughter. With the state seeking a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence, she reached a plea agreement calling for six months in jail, with three months suspended, and no contact with Fualaau for life, among other terms. The case received national attention.
Leo Strauss was a German-American scholar of political philosophy who specialized in classical political philosophy. Born in Germany to Jewish parents, Strauss later emigrated from Germany to the United States. He spent much of his career as a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, where he taught several generations of students and published fifteen books.
Jerry Clyde Rubin was an American social activist, anti-war leader, and counterculture icon during the 1960s and early 1970s. Despite being known for holding radical views when he was a political activist, he ceased holding his more extreme views at some point in the 1970s and instead opted for a successful career as a businessman. In the 1960s, during his political activism heyday, he was known for being one of the co-founders of the Youth International Party (YIP) whose members were referred to as Yippies, and standing trial in the Chicago Seven case.
In the early hours of March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese, a 28-year-old bartender, was raped and stabbed outside the apartment building where she lived in the Kew Gardens neighborhood of Queens in New York City, New York, United States. Two weeks after the murder, The New York Times published an article erroneously claiming that 38 witnesses saw or heard the attack, and that none of them called the police or came to her aid.
Mario Savio was an American activist and a key member of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. He is most famous for his passionate speeches, especially the "Bodies Upon the Gears" address given at Sproul Hall, University of California, Berkeley on December 2, 1964.
Anthony John Abbott is an Australian former politician who served as the 28th prime minister of Australia from 2013 to 2015. He held office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia.
Lenni Brenner, formerly known as Leonard Glaser or Lenny Glaser, is an American Trotskyist writer. In the 1960s, Brenner was a prominent civil rights movement activist and vocal opponent of the Vietnam War. Since the 1980s, his activism has focused on anti-Zionism. He has published widely on the history of Zionism, in particular asserting that the movement collaborated with the Nazis.
Myuran Sukumaran was an Australian who was convicted in Indonesia of drug trafficking as a member of the Bali Nine. In 2005, Sukumaran was arrested in a room at the Melasti Hotel in Kuta with eight others. Police found 334 g (11.8 oz) of heroin in a suitcase in the room. According to court testimonies of convicted drug mules, Sukumaran and Andrew Chan were the co-ringleaders of the heroin-smuggling operation from Indonesia to Australia. After a criminal trial, Sukumaran was sentenced on 14 February 2006 by the Denpasar District Court to execution by firing squad.
Everett Cherrington Hughes was an American sociologist best known for his work on ethnic relations, work and occupations and the methodology of fieldwork. His take on sociology was, however, very broad. In recent scholarship, his theoretical contribution to sociology has been discussed as interpretive institutional ecology, forming a theoretical frame of reference that combines elements of the classical ecological theory of class, and elements of a proto-dependency analysis of Quebec's industrialization in the 1930s.
Peter Bergen's The Osama bin Laden I Know (ISBN 978-0-7432-7891-1) is a book published in 2006. It is a comprehensive collection of personal accounts by people who met Osama bin Laden or worked with him at various stages of his terrorist career.
State of Nevada v. Orenthal James Simpson, et al, Case Number: 07C237890-4. was a criminal case prosecuted in 2007–2008 in the U.S. state of Nevada, primarily involving the retired American football player O. J. Simpson.
Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anthropology at the Collège de France between 1959 and 1982, was elected a member of the Académie française in 1973 and was a member of the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris. He received numerous honors from universities and institutions throughout the world.
The Lone Legion Motorcycle Association was an outlaw motorcycle club located in Blenheim, New Zealand.
The New Hampshire Institute of Politics (NHIOP) is an academic institute at Saint Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire. Founded in 2001, the institute has hosted hundreds of potential candidates for the U.S. presidency.
Elvis' Greatest Shit is a bootleg recording of Elvis Presley, released in July 1982. It assembles a number of studio recordings—including some film scores—and outtakes intended to represent the worst recordings Presley made in his career.
Ami Horowitz is an American conservative documentary filmmaker and activist. He is the writer, producer, and director of Ami on the Loose, a satirical short film series made for Fox News. Horowitz co-wrote, co-directed, and starred in the 2012 documentary U.N. Me, a critical examination of the United Nations.
Jack Weinberg is an American environmental activist and former New Left activist who is best known for his role in the Free Speech Movement at the University of California, Berkeley in 1964.
On 15 March 2019, mass shootings occurred in consecutive terrorist attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. They were committed by a lone gunman who entered both mosques during Friday prayer, firstly at the Al Noor Mosque in the suburb of Riccarton at 1:40 pm and later at the Linwood Islamic Centre at 1:52 pm. Fifty-one people were killed and forty others were injured.
