The (holy) cow: Bossie or Bessie?

[Jonathan Lighter]

There's that Roman settlement in West Texas, "Bovina."  Cows are undoubtedly "Bossy" there.

  All the proof I need.

  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: The (holy) cow: Bossie or Bessie?
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So am I, Jon. It's difficult to derive "Bossie" from _bov-_. Derivation
from a nominative rather than from a stem is very,
very rare, though not unknown or impossible. Besides,
it'd be a problem to account for the English vowel as opposed to the Latin
one. English
short /o/ usually corresponds to Latin short /o/, but the vowel
in nominative /boos/ is long.

-Wilson

On 4/27/06, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: Re: The (holy) cow: Bossie or Bessie?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
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>
> I've heard both Bessie and Bossy. BTW, OED is reluctant to derive the
> latter (earlier "Boss") from Latin.
>
> JL
>
> Barbara Need wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Barbara Need
> Subject: Re: The (holy) cow: Bossie or Bessie?
>
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>
> >It's my impression that once English speakers stopped
> >learning Latin, the bovinym "Bossie" became opaque, and so
> >it was replaced (by folk-etymology or whatever) with the
> >more ordinary female name "Bessie."
>
> I have never heard the name Bessie for a cow. Bossie or (as noted
> elsewhere) Elsie are cow names--and I would say Bossie was more
> prototypical (for me) than Elsie.
>
> Barbara
>
> Barbara Need
> UChicago
>
> >
> >---- Original message ----
> >>Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 17:41:40 -0400
> >>From: Wilson Gray
> >>Subject: Re: Holy cow! (1917)
> >>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >>
> >>---------------------- Information from the mail header ----
> >-------------------
> >>Sender: American Dialect Society >L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>Poster: Wilson Gray
> >>Subject: Re: Holy cow! (1917)
> >>------------------------------------------------------------
> >-------------------
> >>
> >>Isn't the default name for a cow "Bossie"? Cf. various
> >writings for childre=3D
> >>n
> >>and the intracampusly-famous sports cheer of the University
> >of California
> >>Farm, "Bossie! Bossie! Cow! Cow!"
> >>
> >>-Wilson
> >
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