The scene is very familiar. A group of couples come over for a casual summer barbecue. As the host you are responsible for the entrées, but your guests arrive carrying guacamole and chips, salad ingredients or dessert, or perhaps a couple bottles of wine. After initial pleasantries, the group naturally splits in two, the men who wander outside and cluster around the barbecue, and the women who stand in the kitchen and prepare the salad and hors d’oeuvres. The two groups will happily reconvene when dinner is served, but for 45 minutes or so, by tacit and mutual agreement, there are two separate but equal groups.
I assume that the men are primarily talking about sports. Now I know a fair amount about sports, and feel that conversation-wise, I could be an active participant in the barbecue circle, but also feel that this is a no-fly zone for women. On the few occasions that I have attempted to join the circle, I have sensed gears shifting and a realignment of the conversation. I recall one instance when the conversation actually stopped dead – the men just stared at me until I scuttled back into the kitchen. I’m fairly confident that these married men are not talking about anything smutty, but I do think there is a certain male specific vocabulary that is reserved for barbecue pits when women are in the vicinity. There is probably a whole other crude vocabulary reserved for secure testosterone-dominated environments, for example the locker room.
Occasionally, this specialized vocabulary can seep out, leaving women somewhat bewildered. And that was where Nick and I were the other evening while watching a televised tennis match at the BNP Paribas Open. I can’t remember exactly what prompted it, but I suddenly turned to Nick and said, “What does it mean when men say that a woman is ‘built like a brick shit house?’ Is that a compliment or an insult?” I have spent a good deal of time collecting idioms and trying to understand their origins and meanings, and thus Nick has learned to go with the flow at these types of sudden turns in the conversation. Alternatively, maybe this is what you end up talking about after 32 years of marriage.
“I think that it’s a compliment,” he said, “For example, you could say that Maria Sharapova 
is built like a brick shit house.”
A spirited discussion then ensued regarding the real meaning of the phrase. I argued that it must certainly be an insult, and even if you were going to use the phrase, it would only apply to someone who was seriously built, and that Serena Williams would be the poster 
gal for a brick shit house. And now here is the beauty of the internet – it can immediately satisfy your curiosity by providing input from millions. How many conversations would be a complete dead end without an iPad or smart phone at the ready? I immediately discovered that my idle question has not only occurred to others but has also prompted a lively conversation on the internet. I also sought my own input by posting the question on Facebook.
Most of my responses were from women, who understandably reacted negatively to the word “shit,” and concluded the phrase was an insult. However, dictionaries of slang point out that the term refers to an outhouse, and since outhouses are typically temporary, they are constructed of flimsy slop-dop materials. Therefore a brick shit house is a luxury, 
perhaps a neighborhood status symbol, but at the very least it refers to something that is better than it needs to be, and in this dubious sense, the phrase had its origins as a compliment.
Now even if we accept the notion that a brick shit house is a positive attribute, the next consideration is the type of woman it describes. And this is where language becomes so wonderful and fascinating, with infinite nuances evolving to describe ever smaller slivers of meaning. There are whole families of words that differ only slightly, but sometimes we are still left groping for that perfect word. For example, the words nerd, twerp and doofus all have a very specific meaning along the spectrum of a social misfit. A nerd can be very smart but in a lovable way, a twerp is just immature, and a doofus just doesn’t have the same brain power as a nerd. So nuance was the real focus of this shit house discussion.
Most of the male respondents to my face book inquiry suggested that the term also denotes “well built,” but this term is also subject to interpretation. In the construction context of the word, well-built implies durable and indestructible. Extrapolated to humans it implies a muscular and fit physique, i.e. something that is better than it needs to be. Alternatively well-built can describe a softly curvaceous and well endowed figure. One respondent in an internet conversation stated that since bricks are “stacked” unlike wooden planks, the phrase clearly referred to a woman who was stacked. Serena wins out over Maria Sharapova on both of these parameters. Another point of discussion is whether a brick shit house should be pretty. For me this is where the negative implications of an outhouse kick back in. There is a small category of women who are muscular and well-built, but whose face is, well, plain. This is the beauty of language, 
sometimes you need the perfect word to describe someone like Nadia Petrova. I don’t mean to be catty here, and maybe she has a lovely and soft smile off the tennis court, but when I see her in action, only one word comes to mind.
Another post referred me to the Commodores’ like-minded song titled “Brick House,” with the following lyrics:
She’s a brick house
Mighty might just lettin’ it all hang out
She’s a brick house
The lady’s stacked and that’s a fact,
Ain’t nothing holding her back.
She’s a brick house
She’s the only one
Who’s built like an Amazon
We’re together everybody knows
And here’s how the story goes.
The Commodores’ reference to an Amazon is interesting. Granted this allusion might have been used since it rhymes (a little bit, but enough for a song) with “one,” but even so, now we have the image of tall warrior women, who, based on Greek mythology, lived in an all female society. In fact according to the myth, no men were allowed in Amazon country, and the women visited neighboring tribes purely for procreation. Any male children were killed, sent back to their fathers or left in the wilderness to fend for themselves. Some Amazons even took men as slaves. The Commodores continue the theme of an aggressive and dominant woman with the next verse.
She knows she got everything
A woman needs to get a man, yeah
How can she lose with what she use
36-24-36, what a winning hand
The clothes she wears, the sexy ways,
Make an old man wish for younger days
She knows she’s built and knows how to please
Sure enough to knock a man to his knees.
The singer Madonna comes to mind here – the image of a sexually adventurous and aggressive woman who may be more than a man can handle. While the Commodores are describing a straight woman, the issue of sexual orientation is also implied by the reference
to an Amazon – i.e. a tall muscular woman who apparently has limited use for men. Martina Navratilova, Amelie Mauresmo and Sam Stosur come to mind here.
Once defined and dissected, when would it be socially acceptable to use this phrase? Certainly not in mixed company, and this might be the slight hitch in the conversation I have detected when I approach the guys at the barbecue. And even in a men-only group, there is probably a very limited role for a brick shit house, a shame since I have come to appreciate this wonderfully expressive idiom. I bet that no man would dare say, “Boy your wife/girlfriend/daughter is really built like a brick shit house.” Given the different implications, the phrase should only be used with extreme discretion, probably describing a neutral third party.
I think that I have found the best role – just throw it out there while watching a tennis match, followed by a discussion of possible prototypes. Nick ultimately decided that Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova didn’t deserve the label (he was still in the compliment camp). Like Goldilocks, he was looking for someone who was not too big and not too small but just right. And then I decided to give Nick a gift, the kind of gift you can only give after 30 years of marriage. I told him to look up Gabrielle Reece, a statuesque
volleyball player whose confidence and pride in her physique just leap off the page. In every sense of the word, she has more that what is needed, the type of woman who can hang with men on their own terms and appreciate the compliment. One look at Gabrielle and Nick said, “She’s the perfect brick shit house and it’s all good.”
The missing words in the following poem consist of two sets of anagrams (i.e. share the same letters like spot, post, stop) and the number of asterisks or dashes indicates the number of letters. Scroll down for answers.
Let’s praise **** language that always amazes
With its colorful words and vivid phrases.
How can you describe a woman with muscles like a lumberjack,
Who’s tall and lean with big breasts in a stack?
Behemoth, Amazon, Big Momma, none seems to be the right call,
And suddenly it **** you, built like brick **** house says it all.
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Answers: this, hits, shit
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