Silster Wilster, Ch. 10

Fun with words.

The whole "shebang"

When you say "shebang" you don't get the full double entrendre effect that you have by looking at the word "shebang."  Which of course is comprised of two syllables "she" and "bang".   That leads us inexorably to the next issue, to wit:  whether she bang is a statement or a question.  Now that I know her, for example, I can testify unequivocable that she bang and does she ever.  When I first met her, by contrast, I did not know whether she bang.   And so on and so forth.

Though determining whether shebang may be acertained by empirical examination, the history and etiology of shebang is nebulous.   For example, Walt Whitman, though traditionally thought of as more of a hebanger than a shebanger, used shebang to connote some form of hut or rustic dwelling.  In Whitman's Specimen Days, from Complete Poetry and Collected Prose, 1862:

"Besides the hospitals, I also go occasionally on long tours through the camps, talking with the men, &c. Sometimes at night among the groups around the fires, in their shebang enclosures of bushes."

That leads us to the interesting question of whether shebang in a shebang.

 Mark Twain used 'shebang' to refer to a form of vehicle - in Roughing It, 1872:

"Take back your money, madam. We can't allow it. You're welcome to ride here as long as you please, but this shebang's chartered, and we can't let you pay a cent."

Again, does she shebang in a shebang?   I certainly want to know.   Hopefully, not in my new car.   It still has that new car smell.   Shebang in my old conveyance, to be sure.

In the military context, we see for the first time that shebang amounts to just about everything, to wit, "the whole shebang."   For example, military officers are left "running the shebang" as in Johnson's Talking Wire (1864) and S.C. Wilson's Column South (1864).

And let me tell you, those military officers know what they are talking about.  Because when shebang, it is tantamount to everything.  Its that good.

She bang must be distinguished from "shebop"--a notion that was popularized by Cyndi Lauper in the 1980s.  The editors feel there is nothing wrong when shebop.  Still, the preference by this author is that shebang.  Sorry, to those boppers out there, its just the way I feel:-).