keep a cow

[Laurence Horn]

At 5:49 PM -0400 4/23/05, Dennis R. Preston wrote:
>"Don't have a cow" is much much older than the Simpsons.
>
>dInIs
>

Granted.  But for us urban types, it was new, since we weren't likely
to have a cow anyway.

Larry

>
>>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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>
>
>--
>Dennis R. Preston
>University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics
>Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages
>A-740 Wells Hall
>Michigan State University
>East Lansing, MI 48824
>Phone: (517) 432-3099
>Fax: (517) 432-2736
>preston at msu.edu