keep a cow

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:27 PM -0400 4/23/05, Beverly Flanigan wrote:
>My father (b. 1900, Minnesota) said the same thing (chase, that is).  Never
>heard "keep a cow," but might there be some connection with the Simpsons'
>"Don't have a cow"?  I never watched the show, so I don't really know what
>the phrase means.

Something like "Don't get your britches in an uproar".  I was
wondering too about whether the cow that Bart (and anyone wearing the
Bart-inspired T-shirt) is always telling everyone not to have is
related to the one we're sarcastically directed to keep.  It's all
too deep for me.

L

>
>At 12:22 PM 4/23/2005 -0700, you wrote:
>>My grandfather also used to say, "Tell him to go chase himself !"
>>
>>The phrase is very well attested in print. (See HDAS. Buy one if possible.)
>>
>>What he did not say was "Go fuck yourself."  IIRC, John Dos Passos was the
>>first to put this in print, with ref. (again, if IIRC) to WW I.
>>
>>JL
>>
>>Roger Shuy <rshuy at MONTANA.COM> wrote:
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>Sender: American Dialect Society
>>Poster: Roger Shuy
>>Subject: Re: =?ISO-8859-1?B?oCCgIKA=?= keep a cow
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>on 4/23/05 9:58 AM, RonButters at AOL.COM at RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>>
>>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>  -----------------------
>>>  Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>  Poster: RonButters at AOL.COM
>>>  Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20keep=20a=20cow?=
>>>
>>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>--> -
>>>
>>>  In a message dated 4/23/05 9:51:30 AM, rshuy at MONTANA.COM writes:
>>>
>>>
>>>>  My late father, who would be 101 now if he were still alive, used some
>>>>  expressions that I've not heard from others. I wonder if any one else has
>>>>  heard the expression of disgust said to someone else, "Oh, go keep a cow."
>>>>  He lived all his life in central to northern Ohio.
>>>>
>>>>  Roger
>>>>
>>>
>>>  This seems to me to mean the same thing as "Oh, go fly a kite," which was
>>>  very common in east-central Iowa in the 1950s. "Oh, go keep a cow" sounds
>>>  vaguely
>>>  familiar, but I can't say for sure that any of my grandparents used it (or
>>>  didn't).
>>>
>>He also used to say, "Go chase yourself" and I wonder if he was alone in
>>this too.
>>
>>roger
>>
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