keep a cow

[Jim Parish]

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.

As Laurence Horn says, it means something like "Don't get your
britches in an uproar", but it long predates the Simpsons; I remember it
being used in my family in my childhood, in the '60s.

Jim Parish