# I shit it was you



## mairleu

hello dear WR friends,

in a comic strip a young girl knocks at the door of a schoolmate of hers who answers:

panel 1 :
- Hi Connie, I...
panel 2
-... I shit it was you !

with the word shit underlined. i think it means: i was positively sure that it was you behind the door, but it's just a guess because i've never met shit as a verb before... is my guess correct?

thak you in advance.


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## gardian

_i've never met shit as a verb before   

_C'est aussi un verbe. 
to shit = excréter.

I think that it is maybe miswritten.
It ought perhaps be :

" I -- Shit ! It was you ! "

Otherwise your guess is as good as anyone's


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## belgian teacher

Your guess looks correct to me. I shit it was you ! = I bet it was you


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## mairleu

haha, thank you gardian, when i said i've never met shit as a verb i meant in another purport that this included one!
and thanx for your answer but the trouble is i doubt the line could be miswritten: the quality of both author and publisher, the attention the author pays to his drawing and dialogue... do you think that belgian teacher and me are totally wrong and that it's totally impossible that --let's say, because it's a canadian kid who speaks-- the boy says shit instead of bet because he tries to play it cool... n-nn... no?


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## williamc

Bonjour,

"I knew's it were you."


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## belgian teacher

mairleu said:


> the boy says shit instead of bet because he tries to play it cool... n-nn... no?


 
It's a comic trip !!!!
Thanks, williamc


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## mnewcomb71

I have never heard of that particular use before.  I guess I am getting old.


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## wildan1

mnewcomb71 said:


> I have never heard of that particular use before. I guess I am getting old.


 
Nor have I._ I shit it was you_ makes no grammatical or syntactical sense as a straight sentence.

I think gardian's interpretation is the correct one.

_I.... Shit! It was you!_

(He started to say something else starting with _I..._, then had a surprised reaction when realizing he had misunderstood whatever _"you"_ was supposed to be/do)


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## mairleu

well thank you everyone!
and i think we now have a new resource to fight old age: let's just always say shit instead of i bet or i knew it, and i shit we'll all have new cool young pals.


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## NIGI

It sounds abit of an abstract use of shit to me. Maybe there is  a kinda of joke that was revelealed in an earlier edition, that would make more sense of it


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## mairleu

oh i was writing at the same time wildan1. the trouble is, in the first panel, when he says:
  Hi Connie, I...
  he's standing in front of the door with the top part in glass 		so he can see connie (that's why he greets her). and after, in the second panel he says:
... I shit it was you ! 
he's all alone in the panel an has already well seen connie... 
and thank you nigi but as far as i know i have the original edition and this is the very beginning of the graphic novel... but what worries me is that every english native language here think it's a mistake... i'll try to get round the problem. and maybe after a few pages i'l discover that this kid always says shit when he speaks, a kind of a child whim...


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## xiancee

And what 's the name of that comic strip?


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## mairleu

xiancee said:


> And what 's the name of that comic strip?



I NEVER LIKED YOU, by Chester Brown, Drawn & Quarterly, Montreal, 2007.


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## ryanjarman

You can see the first couple of pages at
http://www.amazon.ca/Never-Liked-You-Chester-Brown/dp/1896597149


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## ryanjarman

I'm perplexed by the quote! I'm guessing that maybe it's some comment on how kids hear a swear word and want to use it, even if it doesn't fit in the context and whether or not they know what it means.


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## JMgif

mnewcomb71 said:


> I have never heard of that particular use before. I guess I am getting old.


I'm a teenager and I've never seen it before either.. I've heard "I'm shitting you" as in, kidding, so maybe it's supposed to be shit = kid.. I kid, it was you ?


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## jjg

Strange -- does the kid have some kind of Tourettes and means to say "I thought it was you"?  You can't really tell from the preview.


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## JMgif

^ that would explain it lol.. Maybe the writer is ESL?


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## xiancee

or he wanted to say "I was sure it was you " and "sure" is a "S" word for him so he used "shit" instead


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## NIGI

Actually I have heard shit used in the way of

I have a ferrari
You're shitting me?
I shit you not

nigi


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## xiancee

NIGI said:


> Actually I have heard shit used in the way of
> 
> I have a ferrari
> You're shitting me?
> I shit you not
> 
> nigi



Yes but it's "shit you " not "shit it"


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## JMgif

xiancee said:


> Yes but it's "shit you " not "shit it"


That's what he said.. And what I was trying to say earlier.. but it wouldn't make sense if it was the first thing someone was saying, there would need to be that context..


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## mairleu

haha i just see now --two month later-- all this 'bandying' (does this word exist????) and fell like ryanjarman is the closest. we can come accross this kind of story in books--how kids use words (and especially bad words) without really knowing their meaning. in this case the young boy after that day vows to never cuss ever again (his mother hears him swearing and gets mad).


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## mgarizona

Thanks mairleu, from the pages offered I assumed the point of the story was that he was "trying out" a new word he'd heard, only to get shot down in the attempt by both his angry mother and nice-girl girl pal. The question remains though, what possible usage of the word "shit" could this boy have overheard that he would think it could serve in the sentence given? If the author doesn't answer that question, and if it's so off-the-wall as to make no sense to anyone, I'm afraid I'd consider that sloppy writing.


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## Woofer

I glanced at the first few pages of this book on Amazon and my initial reaction was to read the line as:

Connie, I..., I... Shit! It was you.

I think the underlining of "shit" reinforces this reading.  In other words, "shit" isn't the verb here with the subject "I".  Instead, the sentence with "I" has been cut short and he's using "shit" as an interjection with "It was you" as a full sentence.

I can't guarantee that's what was intended; the original punctuation here is a little bizarre and maybe a different explanation will follow.  All I can say is that as a native speaker that's how I'd parse it.


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## allezallez

I make myself the umpteenth native English speaker to concur with gardian (post #2).


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## gquixote

I think that a part of the joke is that what the little boy had in mind partly was:

"Hi Connie, I... I *could have sworn *it was you."

Or

"I *swear* it was you..."

But in his young, innocent naivete he inserts a swear word and gets into trouble for it. 

...Perhaps.


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## mgarizona

Let's ignore the I's for a moment:

The young boy is waving to the little girl whom he can clearly see through the glass in the door and says "Hi, Connie."

If someone can explain how that physical reality--- looking right at a person and waving--- can lead to someone saying a moment later, "Shit, it was you!" ... I would love to hear it. 

Where is the previous questionable glance when it was her but he wasn't sure? Not in the panel where he's waving at her and saying "Hi Connie," surely.


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## allezallez

mgarizona said:


> Let's ignore the I's for a moment:
> 
> The young boy is waving to the little girl whom he can clearly see through the glass in the door and says "Hi, Connie."
> 
> If someone can explain how that physical reality--- looking right at a person and waving--- can lead to someone saying a moment later, "Shit, it was you!" ... I would love to hear it.
> 
> Where is the previous questionable glance when it was her but he wasn't sure? Not in the panel where he's waving at her and saying "Hi Connie," surely.



I agree, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense and there is no use of capitalization to clear things up.  

Possibly, he is still reacting (in the frame after initially seeing her face) to the realization that it was her who had been knocking previously.  I believe the second frame (I-SHIT IT WAS YOU!) was chosen to slow-down the sequence since it is a (judging from what's available to read) slightly pivotal one where he is then vigorously reprimanded for swearing,  and the story goes from there, initially anyway, talking about swearing and consequences.  In the process of slowing it down between frames (using hyphens in the text) things went from messy (using "shit" in an unusual fashion to begin with) to messier (is the hyphen placed accurately in the second frame?)  But with this level of uncertainty, I could easily be wrong!


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## mairleu

i totally agree with mgarizona: at that point when he says 'i shit it was you' (wherever the punctuation is) there's no way he can be surprised, we have to be more imaginative. gquinote your try could really fit the story and the personnality of the young boy. ll try to get in touch with chester brown and ask him... to be shitinued...


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## xiancee

mairleu said:


> haha i just see now --two month later-- all this 'bandying' (does this word exist????) and fell like ryanjarman is the closest. we can come accross this kind of story in books--how kids use words (and especially bad words) without really knowing their meaning. in this case the young boy after that day vows to never cuss ever again (his mother hears him swearing and gets mad).




"and fell like ryanjarman is the closest." What do you mean by that??


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