Holy Cow

[Sam Clements]

Page,

You DO remember my posting about the possible/probable baseball origins of
the exclamation from an April posting to ADS-L this year by me?


http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0404A&L=ads-l&P=R2536



----- Original Message -----
From: "Page Stephens" <hpst at earthlink.net>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2004 3:31 PM
Subject: Holy Cow


Wilson wrote:

FWIW, before, during, and after the 15 years that I lived in St. Louis,
Harry Caray was the voice of the St. Louis Cardinals. In those days, he
wasn't known for even using "Holy Cow!", let alone for having invented it.
Rather, he was known for "It might be! It Could Be! It IS! A HOME
RUN!" Funny how history is continually being rewritten.

-Wilson Gray

Wilson and I disagree on this but then we are both old men, and you know
what Bob Hope once said on the Johnny Carson Show. He was talking about the
stages of senility.

First you you forget faces. Then you forget names. Then you forget to zip
up. Then you forget to zip down.

I think :-) that I heard Harry using holy cow back in the late 1940s and
early 1950s, but I wouldn't bet my life on it or for that matter even a pair
of old undershorts.

Having looked up Harry and Rizzuto's use of the phrase online apparently
there is some controversy here which my friend Wilson and I are echoing.

Whoever used it first I think that Wilson and I can agree that it is a great
phrase.

Any SABR members out there who can help us with this problem?

Page Stephens