keep a cow/have a cow

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 02:38 PM 4/24/2005 -0400, you wrote:
>At 12:53 PM -0400 4/24/05, Beverly Flanigan wrote:
>>At 12:10 PM 4/24/2005 -0400, you wrote:
>>>On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 08:47:27 -0700, Jan Kammert <write at SCN.ORG> wrote:
>>>
>>>>On Sat, 23 Apr 2005, 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.
>>>>In the mid-1960s around Chicago, we said have a cow to mean have a fit.
>>>
>>>HDAS has a 1966 cite for "have a cow" from the Indiana University Folklore
>>>Archives.  And the similar "have kittens" goes all the back to 1900
>>>(Dialect Notes).
>>>
>>>It's been suggested on alt.usage.english that "have kittens" might have
>>>originated as a mishearing/eggcornification of "have conniptions".  Any
>>>evidence for this theory?
>>>
>>>
>>>--Ben Zimmer
>>
>>Speaking of eggcorns (since Ben brought them up again), I saw in print
>>today for the first time "one in the same."  In a column on MJ possibly
>>going to prison, the author suggested it would be like bunny rabbits in a
>>kennel full of pit bulls: "It's all one in the same."
>>
>>And in the '50s we did say "he/she had kittens" when in a rage.
>
>Ah, but did anyone advise you "Don't have kittens, man" to ward one off?
>
>Larry

Actually, I think so--in the singular, more likely.  "Kittens" might have
been rare in any context, now that I think of it (which I hadn't for about
50 years).