keep a cow

[Jonathan Lighter]

To "have a cow" is more or less equivalent to my grandmother's expression, to "have kittens," i.e., to have a fit of anger, impatience, anxiety, etc.

JL

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: Re: keep a cow
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At 3:27 PM -0400 4/23/05, 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.

Something like "Don't get your britches in an uproar". I was
wondering too about whether the cow that Bart (and anyone wearing the
Bart-inspired T-shirt) is always telling everyone not to have is
related to the one we're sarcastically directed to keep. It's all
too deep for me.

L

>
>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 wrote:
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>>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:
>>
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>>> 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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