The (holy) cow: Bossie or Bessie?

[Jonathan Lighter]

Donald Hall has a great poem about horses' names :

  http://www.izaak.unh.edu/exhibits/kenhall/HORSES.HTM

  JL

"hpst at earthlink.net" <hpst at EARTHLINK.NET> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "hpst at earthlink.net"
Subject: Re: The (holy) cow: Bossie or Bessie?
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Wilson,

It doesn't have to be derived. It could be merely a mistake on someone
unknown's part which caught on. Besides there are so many different English
dialects that it could have come any one of them. I am not an expert on the
many dialects of English such as Welsh and the many Scottish, Irish and for
that matter regional dialects in England which exhibit gaelic and other
influences that to restrict it to some idealized form of Anglo-Saxon makes
little sense to me. This is the problem we run into when we abstract
linguistic usages from the social context. Bessie I've heard as well as
Flossie when I was living on a ranch in northern Arkansas. We also had a
Floppy and a Big Red and several other named cows. We never named steers
since they were only around for a year or so but some of our cows were
around for up to 17 years.

Horses were always named as well as dogs and cats and even a pet goat but
we had a more intimate -- no not in that sense -- relationship with them
hence, Blaze, Star, Blanka, Hildy, Buddy, Fuzzy and Other Fuzzy.

By the way if you ever want to refine your roping skills get yourself a pet
goat and practice on that because it is damned near impossible to rope one
which reminds me of the time some idiot astrologer once declared that
Cleveland, Ohio was a Capricorn since it like a goat was stolid. This was a
person who had obviously never owned a goat.

Page Stephens

> [Original Message]
> From: Wilson Gray
> To:
> Date: 4/27/2006 11:02:18 PM
> Subject: Re: The (holy) cow: Bossie or Bessie?
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
-----------------------
> 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
> > -----------------------
> > 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
> > -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > Poster: Barbara Need
> > Subject: Re: The (holy) cow: Bossie or Bessie?
> >
> >
-------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
> >
> > >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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