counting sheep [was "re: gay cowboys"]

[Jonathan Lighter]

  OED has a bracketed 1854 for "count sheep," then nothing till 1920.  Certainly it strikes me as a predominantly post-1920 expression. (It's not in the _Century Dict._ or its 1913 Supplement, BTW, AFAIK.)

  Can anyone aid posterity by augmenting the history of this phrase ?

  Or by augmenting with additional traditional stanzas the bawdy version of the cowboy song ?

  JL


Page Stephens <hpst at EARTHLINK.NET> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Page Stephens
Subject: Re: gay cowboys
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Cowboy humor always had as far as I can tell a measure of self deprecation
especially in terms of the animals they tended.

Here are two verses from the dirty probably original version of a song you
probably all know: Come a Yi Yippi Yippi O.

I jumped in the saddle, and the saddle wasn't there.
I rammed nine inches in the old gray mare.
I'm gonna time my pecker to a tree to a tree.
I'm gonna tie my pecker to a tree.

I laid on the ground and counted sheep
So goddammed pretty that I couldn't go to sleep.
etc.

Page Stephens

> [Original Message]
> From: sagehen
> To:
> Date: 12/23/2005 2:19:21 PM
> Subject: Re: gay cowboys
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
-----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: sagehen
> Subject: Re: gay cowboys
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
>
> arnold writes:
> > ........but the issue about "cowboy" is interesting. the
> > dictionaries i have to hand all make the connection to cattle
> > explicit, but i believe that in the world these guys come from,
> > "cowboy" is a cover term for ranch workers, rodeo riders, and herders
> > in general. it might be that it covers only jobs done at least in
> > part on horseback... i'll see if anyone on ADS-L has some insight
> > into this.
> >
> > [ok, ADS-Lers: anyone have any evidence of this extended sense of
> > "cowboy"?]
> >
> > the image i get for "shepherd" *never* has the herders on horseback,
> > but that just might be me. now i'm wondering how the basque
> > shepherds of nevada go about their job.
> >
> > [anyone know the answer to this question?]
> >
> > the perfect parallel to "cowboy" would be "sheepboy". and it's
> > attested, but is obviously not common or current; from OED2:
> >
> > 1842 S. C. HALL Ireland II. 81 The *sheep-boy saw him go in. 1859
> > MEREDITH R. Feverel xix, Pipe, happy sheep-boy, Love!
> >
> > "sheep(-)boy" sounds irretrievably silly, i'm afraid. "sheepherder"
> > would be transparent and serviceable and would avoid the religious or
> > somewhat cutesy connotations of "shepherd".
> >
> > [now that i think about it, i have the impression that the basque
> > keepers of sheep are more often referred to as "sheepherders" rather
> > than "shepherds". but certainly not as "cowboys".]
> > -----
> ~~~~~~~~
> I turned this over to Martin, knowing he would have something to say on
the
> subject. His reply:
>
>
> Proulx called them "ranch kids." Correct, but that can cover any family
> member of either a sheep ranch or a cattle ranch. (There is a faint
> tinge of condescension in her description of those guys).
> The interviewer has to cut to the issue: the two ranch kids are on a
> summer job herding sheep; therefore, they are definitely not cowboys;
> they are sheep men or sheepers or herders, or just kids doing a summer
> job. See Skip Rawlins for a non-fiction account of two kids herding
> sheep one summer in the Wind Rivers of Wyoming.
> I suppose cowboys sometimes use the term herder for working cattle, but
> usually they are "driving" them or "cutting" single animals from the
> herd for branding, shipping, vaccinating etc. or rounding them up from
> summer range, or loading them into trucks, etc. There are other terms
> for working cattle and probably for working sheep too, but one of the
> interesting lacunas in western history is the dearth of writings about
> sheepers, compared to the mountains of stuff re cowboys.
> For Northern Nevada cowboying see Owen Ulph's "The Fiddleback," or his
> magnum opus, "The Leather Throne."
> Sheep herders are also horsemen. My daugher and I met such a one in the
> Jarbidge Mountains, northern Nevada. He happened to be from Peru, but I
> would hazard a guess he was working for a sheep rancher.
> An interesting confusion that might play into the language confusion is
> that ranchers sometimes alternate between sheep and cattle, depending
> on market prices.
>
> A&M Murie
> N. Bangor NY
> sagehen at westelcom.com





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