Holy Cow! (1920)

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>"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