Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren vogeban here. It seems quaint these days
Speaker 1: to express astonishment with a wholesome phrase like holy cow.
Speaker 1: It's so common that we've probably all said it at
Speaker 1: some point, maybe as kids, and if you're a sports
Speaker 1: fan of a certain age, you may even associate it
Speaker 1: with baseball announcers Phil Rizutto or Harry Carry. Carrie delivered
Speaker 1: a particularly memorable holy Cow in his broadcasts, and so
Speaker 1: much so that comedian Will Ferrell often parodied Carry on
Speaker 1: Saturday Night Live. Some people even thought that Rasutto or
Speaker 1: Carrie might have originated the phrase. They were both in
Speaker 1: the booth in the early days of Holy Cow, but
Speaker 1: not quite early enough. Risuto began announcing after his playing
Speaker 1: days were over. His first season as an announcer for
Speaker 1: the New York Yankees was in. Carrie's announcing career began
Speaker 1: in the minor leagues in nineteen forty three, and he
Speaker 1: moved up to the majors in but holy Cow dates
Speaker 1: from before that. It's what's known as a minced oath,
Speaker 1: which is when you substitute a kind of maybe similar
Speaker 1: ish sounding word for a taboo word, and that's why
Speaker 1: we have freaking dang it and heck. In this case,
Speaker 1: cow is probably a stand in for Christ, so the
Speaker 1: speaker wouldn't take the Lord's name in vain. Minced Oaths
Speaker 1: have been around in the English language for hundreds of years.
Speaker 1: The variations on the holy theme have been in use
Speaker 1: since the middle of the eighteen hundreds. According to the
Speaker 1: Oxford English Dictionary, it's definition of holy includes its use
Speaker 1: as an expletive, such as holy cow or holy mackerel.
Speaker 1: The first instance listed for this variety of minced oath
Speaker 1: in print comes in eighteen fifty five, with holy Moses.
Speaker 1: But what about holy cow? Specifically? It does indeed have
Speaker 1: ties to baseball, but back four Carrie and Rosuto were
Speaker 1: even born. A picture for the Sacramento Wolves of nineteen
Speaker 1: thirteen was known as holy Cow Peters, according to a
Speaker 1: report in the Sacramento Union that year. But not even
Speaker 1: Auto holy Cow Peters could claim to have invented the phrase,
Speaker 1: since that same year The Lincoln Star in Nebraska noted
Speaker 1: that player manager Charlie Mullen said holy cow. So as
Speaker 1: early as nineteen thirteen people were saying holy cow, at
Speaker 1: least in Sacramento, California, and Lincoln, Nebraska. The thing is,
Speaker 1: cows are famously held as holy in Hinduism. They're not
Speaker 1: gods and they're not worshiped, but cows are considered sacred.
Speaker 1: These gentle beasts, after all, give more to humans than
Speaker 1: they take in the form of milk and its products
Speaker 1: like butter and cheese and manure, which we can use
Speaker 1: as fertilizer. There were a few English language books on
Speaker 1: India and Hinduism around in the late nineteenth and early
Speaker 1: twentieth centuries, which cones sides with the phrase popping up
Speaker 1: across America. It's unlikely that baseball players were directly referencing
Speaker 1: Hindu religious beliefs in creating their new minced oath, but
Speaker 1: it is likely that holy cows where something Westerners knew
Speaker 1: about around that time. And if you're a baseball player
Speaker 1: who just struck out again and you're forbidden from swearing
Speaker 1: by the league, holy cow might start to look like
Speaker 1: a pretty good substitute for what you'd really like to say.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Kristen Hall Geisler and produced
Speaker 1: by Tyler Clanging. Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radios.
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