A question of etymology

Funny how one person will take something for granted, but someone else who had a different upbringing will have never heard of it.

Yesterday, I made a remark about something that I didn't give a flying shit. Oddly enough, Joe hadn't ever heard "give a flying shit" -- he spent the rest of the night giggling about flying feces. :)

Later on, my mind made the leap to "don't give a flying fuck," then "take a flying fuck" and "take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut."

Now, I managed to track down that last one thanks to Google -- apparently, it's from Kurt Vonnegut, actually used in two of his books. So "take a flying fuck" must just be a backformation, simple there.

But I can't seem to find anything online to explain why we don't "give a flying shit." Why is it a flying shit, anyway?

This is what I end up doing when I'm bored... thinking about silly questions like this. Well, that and making new icons -- found some new Pearls Before Swine pics that were cute, so I did some quick crop-and-tweak on 'em.