Why does the phrase "built like a brick shithouse" mean what it means? After all, an actual brick shithouse presumably is straight up and down or it would topple.
Why does the phrase "built like a brick shithouse" mean what it means? After all, an actual brick shithouse presumably is straight up and down or it would topple.
Why does the phrase "built like a brick shithouse" mean what it means? After all, an actual brick shithouse presumably is straight up and down or it would topple.
Because that's how people use it. It's an idiom.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/idiom
an expression in the usage of a language that is peculiar to itself either in having a meaning that cannot be derived from the conjoined meanings of its elements (such as up in the air for "undecided") or in its grammatically atypical use of words (such as give way)
In the case of "built like a brick shithouse", at a guess it derives from a meaning of one of "well built", "sturdy", and/or "fancy".
First: I would presume shithouse = outhouse, an out-building covering a primitive pit toilet. Something that goes back to before the days of indoor plumbing.
most outhouses were built of wood and were not terribly well built.
A brick outhouse is something only a wealthy person would have.
ETA: Part of the reason a brick outhouse would have been rare is that with a pit toilet, when the pit is full you have to dig a new pit and move the outhouse or empty the pit somehow (and where do you dispose of the contents?).
A new pit means either moving the outhouse or tearing down the old one and building a new one. Either option would be much more difficult and expensive with a brick outhouse.
Why does the phrase "built like a brick shithouse" mean what it means?
My understanding is that it originated in the military. In days long past many military bases and training area accommodations were 'under canvass', the only permanent structures being the shithouse, cookhouse and sometimes the guardhouse. As these shithouses were communal and well used, they were built to endure constant use.
Sidenote. Many who served long ago will attest that there were very few distinctions between shithouse and cookhouse, certainly in terms of odour and content. The only common distinction is that cookhouses were larger.
I was going to respond with my opinion, but read DS's response first - he basically said what I was going to say.
The idiom is not about the shape of the brick outhouse (shithouse), but a comparison to the typical outhouse. The outhouses I am familiar with were wooden structures designed to be moved to a new hole when the capacity of the existing hole has been reached; you can't move a brick outhouse. The outhouses I have used were wooden structures that were intentionally drafty to allow the odors to dissipate. Even with the draft, the odor would buildup, especially on a hot summer day. The best I can say about them is, they kept the rain off of me while I did my business and gave me a measure of privacy.
DS has the bulk of it. However, as he says, it goes back to when everyone had an outside toilet and most were rickety wooden structures which only one person could use at a time. When the more well off people had enough spare cash they started to build their outhouses of bricks they decided if they were investing that sort of money they'd do a decent job of it and thus people building brick outhouses built ones big enough for 2 or 3 people at once with some interior walls (sometimes wood, sometimes a single brick wall). Thus they were wider and more solidly built. Also, the early public ones were usually 4 person ones with interior brick walls and one door facing out on each side. They did look odd, but you could usually find one of them had an entrance out of the wind.
Internal outhouses where (are) a thing.
Ever wondered how people in medieval castles did it? There's a special fully enclosed console out of a side of a tower over the moot, at the second or third floor level, with a hole in the floor. You can shit on the attackers trying to scale the wall, literally, by design.
Even as late as early 1930-ies... I know a small country village store house built around 1933 (I think) consisting of the main store room with storage space and utility rooms in the middle, a barber shop on the side of that, a small flat for the barber at the north end, and three bedroom store owner's appartment at the other, plus six for-rent rooms (optionally connected in pairs) in the attic under premium Swedish steel roof (the WW2 bullet holes still visible, multiple localized repair attempts have been mostly unsuccessful throughout the years). There's no bathroom, none. The bathhouse (steam sauna) was, as it's traditionally, a separate building over the yard.
What interest us here though: in front of the staircase on the yard side there's a man-trap style (~5' x 6') closed porch, and to the side of that there's a build-in outhouse. But while the building itself is vertically stacked 15" log filled frame over linear stone base with cut limestone paneling on the outside and lime plaster (on wood splint net) on the inside, that damn outhouse is on-site poured concrete bunker, monstrous monolith the seat including. It sits over no less than 12 feet deep pit that's extending under the full width of itself and the porch combined, if not even more, to the side under the wall, and to my knowledge had never yet been in needed to empty (and yes, it's still in occasional use), although there's a structure in the hillside along the wall that's probably intended to offer opportunity to dig it open.
I imagine, if that building caught fire, the three chimneys and that outhouse is all what's guaranteed to remain of it, the roof steel not counting.
P.S. yes, using it as a kid, the fear of falling into that pit accidentally was a stuff of nightmares.
Another variation on the outhouse that relates mostly to those "in town". Since property/lot sizes were small the practice of a new pit when the old one was full wasn't viable. "In town" outhouses/privies/whatever, were built with a upward opening "door" on the back side. On a routine basis someone would come around and empty the receiving area.
That person was usually hired and in my town he drove a horse pulled wagon. I suppose those who owned wagons could empty their own. Where the refuse went I haven't a clue.
The house I grew up in had a small woodshed with adjacent outhouse. It also had indoor plumbing. T suppose the house was built when people weren't sure about the newfangled plumbing. The best I can figure out the house was built some time in the 1920's.
On a routine basis someone would come around and empty the receiving area.
Years ago I met a fellow who did this in his youth in Sydney, Australia. he had a story about how the guy who trained him always told him to carry the empty replacement can into the yard on his shoulder, switch the cans, then carry the heavy full can out on your shoulder. When asked why carry the empty in on your shoulder he would reply, "If they have an extra clothes line up you definitely want to find it on your way in with the empty can up, and not on the way out."
Another variation on the outhouse that relates mostly to those "in town". Since property/lot sizes were small the practice of a new pit when the old one was full wasn't viable. "In town" outhouses/privies/whatever, were built with a upward opening "door" on the back side. On a routine basis someone would come around and empty the receiving area.
That person was usually hired and in my town he drove a horse pulled wagon. I suppose those who owned wagons could empty their own. Where the refuse went I haven't a clue.
That person was probably a local farmer not far outside of town who used the collected material as fertilizer.
That person was probably a local farmer not far outside of town who used the collected material as fertilizer
Not in this particular case. I'm sure it applies in others though.
Oh, another tidbit, he used a horse drawn wagon. Likely the only horse seen in town on a regular basis.
I've heard the term applied to buxom women: "She's built like a brick shithouse." It's a bit antique now I think. Probably people under age - sixty? - don't use it or have never heard it used that way. According to the Urban Dictionary, it's a British term and could apply to any large person. When I heard it used in America a while back it referred only to women - large breasts, backside, etc.
Lionel Richie and the Commodores shortened it in the Commodores' song Brick House. Bang-chicka-Bang-chicka-bang-chicka-bang Now, lol.
It was used in the 70s quite a bit and is even hinted at in a Commodores song where they drop the one offensive word.
I'm almost 70 and built like a brick shithouse was a common term to describe solid women.
I'm almost 70 and built like a brick shithouse was a common term to describe solid women.
And what would have been considered a "solid" woman.
I'm almost 70 and built like a brick shithouse was a common term to describe solid women.
I'm a little younger than you, but that's the meaning I've encountered for most of my life too. When I read it in a SOL story, I have to stop and reinterpret it as physically attractive rather than physically unattractive.
AJ
I once lived in a brick shit house.
it was very poorly constructed.
It was mostly drywall that was cracked and cheap aluminum siding now that I think about it.
It was mostly drywall that was cracked and cheap aluminum siding now that I think about it.
That doesn't sound like a brick shithouse at all
Brick on the outside.
So where does the cheap aluminum siding come in? I've never seen a house in my area that was wood frame with a brick exterior that had any kind of siding over the brick.
Brick on the outside. The house was shit.
The key components on a brick shithouse is that it's firm, thick and reliable/dependable, not what size its caboose it. And definitely not how much it shimmies and shakes during a storm!
And definitely not how much it shimmies and shakes during a storm!
What about how much is shimmies and shakes in an earthquake?
What about how much is shimmies and shakes in an earthquake?
Bricks not known for shimmying. Maples bent, bricks crack and break apart, regardless of how 'firm' and tight they might be.
Bricks not known for shimmying. Maples bent, bricks crack and break apart
That would be true for individual bricks.
A brick wall is a different matter. I would expect the mortar to give out long before individual bricks start to break, then the wall as a whole will do a fairly convincing dance before it falls down and goes boom.
I'm not sure that's 100% true. Poor quality mortar usually gives out first, but if the mortar is decent and the bricks are subject to water and freezing, they'll disintegrate first.
Some of the brick walls in my area are 70 years old or more, and once they start to crumble the bricks disintegrate quite quickly.
AJ
Some of the brick walls in my area are 70 years old or more, and once they start to crumble the bricks disintegrate quite quickly.
Bromley Hall is probably the oldest brick building in England still standing and was constructed around 1485. Almost ten years before Columbus claimed America for Spain.
ome of the brick walls in my area are 70 years old or more, and once they start to crumble the bricks disintegrate quite quickly.
That sounds like unusually poor quality bricks. There are structural brick buildings in the US that are still standing and still usable that are more than 200 years old.
That sounds like unusually poor quality bricks.
Contemporary cookie-cutter house bricks of the time, and certainly not engineering bricks.
AJ
That sounds like unusually poor quality bricks. There are structural brick buildings in the US that are still standing and still usable that are more than 200 years old.
Even today, most cities/regions with brick houses have local brickyards, where they construct the bricks based on whatever kind of dirt the local areas have (which is why you'll see greenish bricks in one area, bluish in another and reddish in yet another).
Thus, it's typically the local materials that fail first, due to the cohesive effect of the compounds that determine the overall failure rate--though the effects of hurricane force winds are another big factor. Local supplies are almost always cheaper--especially back when materials were transported by either horse, oxen or railroad--though it's not always as stable or permanent.
There's myriad of materials bricks had been and are made from, and likewise there's myriad types of mortar they're laid out with. In proper, expected exploitation envelopes any of them can last centuries or millennia. But pressed dried mud bricks will disintegrate if exposed to significant rainfall (and a few years ago there was news about an antique monument casing to exist before rain fell where it haven't for several thousand years).
Even "ordinary" clay bricks can be of vastly different quality, be forged too lightly or not uniformly, or contain inclusions of other materials that have no business to be there.
Exposed to penetrating moisture and freezing temperatures repeatedly, especially if going through freezing/thawing cycles daily (as is very common in winter where I live) only the very best quality properly forged clay bricks can be expected to last. Sure, keeping them dry is all it takes, but that requires the roof to be (properly) maintained, or exist at all, and proper hydro insulation from the soil too. Else, impurities can explode.
Now, mortars. Lime-sand mortars or clay mortars used in fireproof structures traditionally are many orders of magnitude weaker than properly forged clay bricks, even can be scraped away by fingernails, and will lose adhesion to the bricks when soaked through. High strength cement mortars are a different game altogether, especially if mixed by amateur builders erring on the side of safety by using many times the required amount of cement powder. Such will take surface layer of the brick off when you attempt to demolish the wall.
There's a lot of legends around what Chinese used to mix mortar for parts of the Great Wall, as it took centuries but there too bricks disintegrated before the mortar.
A brick wall is a different matter. I would expect the mortar to give out long before individual bricks start to break, then the wall as a whole will do a fairly convincing dance before it falls down and goes boom.
In Jamaica, where they principally used cement blocks, they'd run steel bars between them to provide additional reinforcement. Between the two, those houses stood up against many a storm, while the heavier constructions in the States (i.e. souther Florida) didn't fare nearly as well.
In those cases, it wasn't a matter of how strong the brick or mortar was, it was the force applied to the entire wall/house, so extending it into the ground managed to cut that force by a sufficient amount, and fewer walls ended up crumbling (forgetting shattering, cracking or splintering).
According to the Uniform Building Code in the United States, rebar has to be placed both vertically and horizontally. I for get what the spacing was as I have been retired too long. The cells with the rebar is to be filled with grout that has a compressive strength of 2000 psi, This is in, as I recall, in seismic zone 2. (I was a special inspector to make sure that the code and approved plans were followed.
It was common for people mainly kids to collect and clean mortar off of bricks to be reused and recycled the brick now there are business that specialize in old recycled bricks.
According to the Uniform Building Code in the United States, rebar has to be placed both vertically and horizontally. I for get what the spacing was as I have been retired too long. The cells with the rebar is to be filled with grout that has a compressive strength of 2000 psi, This is in, as I recall, in seismic zone 2. (I was a special inspector to make sure that the code and approved plans were followed.
Not challenging you just curious as to which year did you retire from ? as it has changed and evolved as the Government loves to change the rules.
Uniform Building Code in the United States
1927 (first version), 1935, 1937, 1940, 1943, 1946, 1949, 1952, 1955, 1958, 1961, 1964, 1967, 1970, 1973, 1976, 1979, 1982, 1985, 1988, 1991, 1994, 1997 (last version)
The Commodores song definitely is about a woman with some substantial physical charms. "That lady's stacked and that's a fact." She's not a skinny chick. At one point she's also compared to an Amazon.
I was an insurance underwriter for years. Brick buildings are far better at fire resistance than frame buildings (made of wood). However frame buildings tend to do better in earthquakes than brick buildings.
"Imagine for a moment that your house is anchored to a flatcar on a moving train. Suddenly the train collides with another train, and the flatcar stops abruptly. What happens to your house? If it's a wood-frame house, as most houses in the Northwest are, it probably would not collapse, although your brick chimney might topple over. If your house is made of brick or concrete block, unreinforced by steel rebar, then the entire house might collapse."
https://oregonstate.edu/instruct/oer/earthquake/13%20chapter%2011_color.html#
I was an insurance underwriter for years. Brick buildings are far better at fire resistance than frame buildings (made of wood). However frame buildings tend to do better in earthquakes than brick buildings.
That's for the same reason that flexible trees (maples) are better than taller, thicker trees like oak or even pine, as the pliable wood bends, absorbing the force, while the brick walls absorbs the full force against the entire structure, causing it to collapse fairly quickly.
Plus, for fires there's really no 'force' to consider, just 'combustibles', so the less exposed wood there is, the safer it is.
And after multiple decades living on an exposed island chain jutting into the middle of the Atlantic, we've learned how to mitigate hurricane damage, and that's to break the 'solid' walls into smaller irregular panels, reduce the overhang (which typically rips roofs off of buildings), tying the structure down and better reinforcing the tie-down beams. Nowadays, we lose more homes to the ground (largely sand) washing away than to the structures collapsing. And of course, the cheaper 'boxier' houses are the first to go!
Trying to explain old slang expressions to a new generation is difficult if not frustrating, and inevitably much meaning and context is lost in the effort. "Built like a brick shithouse" means anything from very attractive to awesome, and was more of an overall statement of appreciation separate from distinct features.
Another expression, less universal, had to do with oral sex: "eating that would be a violation of the pure food and drug act!" meaning too pure to violate, usually a reference to young women.
Or a more recent example that goes over people's heads, "he's a four-flusher!" a card game reference meaning a fraud, a cheat, crooked, a fellow not to be trusted.
Or very popular from my youth, "he talks like a man with a paper asshole!" That one, you can speculate on.
IMHO, the context of cultural slang usually doesn't carry forward to successive generations without losing much of its meaning. Otherwise we'd not be discussing what "brick shithouse" really means in describing an awesomely attractive woman.
Care to ruminate on "tinhorn?" We had one of those in the White House just recently.
(80 and looking forward to 81)
Care to ruminate on "tinhorn?" We had one of those in the White House just recently.
Found this:
https://truewestmagazine.com/what-does-the-word-tinhorn-mean/
unscrupulous, unskilled, self-important or low-class gambler. It could also refer to a man pretending to have money or influence, or someone who was flashy; a dude or a phony.
The term originated from a game where three dice were rolled down a chute onto a flat area. The horn- or cone-shaped chute was usually made of leather, but cheaper chutes were made of tin. Since tin was considered to be of poor quality, and these gamblers masked their low-class game by wearing flashy clothes, the name "tinhorn gambler" was born.
These guys stood on the bottom rung of gambling's social ladder.