Holy Cow! (1920)

[Page Stephens]

Holy Cow!!! was associated and popularized by two baseball announcers, Harry
Caray and Phil Rizzuto.

Harry's autobiography was as I recall entitled Holy Cow.

Harry btw used it years before Rizzuto although since he used it in St.
Louis while Rizzuto used it in New York I have seen Rizzuto given credit for
originating it in a baseball context.

Small market teams and announcers suffer from a disadvantage in terms of
media exposure. Until Harry became the voice of the Cubs via Oakland and the
White Sox he never received the exposure others received.

Page Stephens

----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 7:52 PM
Subject: Re: Holy Cow! (1920)


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Holy Cow! (1920)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
>
> >"Holy Cow" comes not from India but from--Hawaii? Who knew about this
> >etymology?
>
> I'm not convinced that the interjection "holy cow" originated with this
> Hawaiian drink. I believe it is quite likely that the native name of the
> drink was facetiously altered to match the already-existing interjection
> "Holy cow" (ProQuest seems to show the interjection "Holy cow" from 1917,
> at a glance, and the shorter interjection "Cow" is in HDAS from the 1860's
> [I presume basically a euphemism for "Christ"?]).
>
> -- Doug Wilson