especially a stupid or avoidable mistake. When used to comment on the actions of someone else, they can take on a more humorous quality if the mistake does not result in serious consequences. The term piece of shit is generally used to classify a product or service as being sufficiently below the writer's understanding of generally accepted quality standards to be of negligible and perhaps even negative value. The term piece of shit has greater precision than shit or shitty in that piece of shit identifies the low quality of a specific component or output of a process without applying a derogatory slant to the entire process. For example, if one said "The youth orchestra has been a remarkably successful initiative. The fact that the orchestra's recent rendition of Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony in B minor was pretty much a piece of shit should not in any way detract from this." The substitution of shit or shitty for pretty much a piece of shit would imply irony and would therefore undermine the strength of the statement. The phrase "(I don't) give a shit" can be used when one does not care about something, or has a passive attitude toward said thing, as it denotes indifference. In context, one can say: "You're offended? Well, I don't give a shit!" or "You're telling me? Go find somebody who gives a shit." President Richard Nixon said to aide H.R. Haldeman while being tape recorded in the Oval Office, "I don't give a shit about the lira." He meant he was too busy managing the Watergate affair to consider a crisis in the Italian monetary system. The shit list is a category of people who are in ill favor with some individual or group of people, perhaps as the managers of a company, and likely to be the targets of special treatment. The phrase "take shit" means to receive bad or frivolous treatment from someone. Such an abused person might say "I'm not taking any more of your shit!" to indicate that they will no longer tolerate such treatment. Whale shit is sometimes used to describe a person who inspires displeasure or disgust, as in: "You're lower than whale shit at the bottom of the ocean!" “You can’t polish shit” is a popular aphorism roughly equivalent to "putting Lipstick on a pig" (although "a turd" is more commonly used). However, the TV show Mythbusters showed