keep a cow

[Beverly Flanigan]

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.

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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