Why Do People Say 'Holy Cow'?

The phrase 'holy cow' is an example of a minced oath -- a substitute for a taboo phrase. Learn how baseball was involved in its popularity in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
brain Stuff, Lauren vogeban here. It seems quaint these days
to express astonishment with a wholesome phrase like holy cow.
It's so common that we've probably all said it at
some point, maybe as kids, and if you're a sports

(00:22):
fan of a certain age, you may even associate it
with baseball announcers Phil Rizutto or Harry Carry. Carrie delivered
a particularly memorable holy Cow in his broadcasts, and so
much so that comedian Will Ferrell often parodied Carry on
Saturday Night Live. Some people even thought that Rasutto or
Carrie might have originated the phrase. They were both in

(00:44):
the booth in the early days of Holy Cow, but
not quite early enough. Risuto began announcing after his playing
days were over. His first season as an announcer for
the New York Yankees was in. Carrie's announcing career began
in the minor leagues in nineteen forty three, and he
moved up to the majors in but holy Cow dates

(01:07):
from before that. It's what's known as a minced oath,
which is when you substitute a kind of maybe similar
ish sounding word for a taboo word, and that's why
we have freaking dang it and heck. In this case,
cow is probably a stand in for Christ, so the
speaker wouldn't take the Lord's name in vain. Minced Oaths

(01:29):
have been around in the English language for hundreds of years.
The variations on the holy theme have been in use
since the middle of the eighteen hundreds. According to the
Oxford English Dictionary, it's definition of holy includes its use
as an expletive, such as holy cow or holy mackerel.
The first instance listed for this variety of minced oath
in print comes in eighteen fifty five, with holy Moses.

(01:54):
But what about holy cow? Specifically? It does indeed have
ties to baseball, but back four Carrie and Rosuto were
even born. A picture for the Sacramento Wolves of nineteen
thirteen was known as holy Cow Peters, according to a
report in the Sacramento Union that year. But not even
Auto holy Cow Peters could claim to have invented the phrase,

(02:17):
since that same year The Lincoln Star in Nebraska noted
that player manager Charlie Mullen said holy cow. So as
early as nineteen thirteen people were saying holy cow, at
least in Sacramento, California, and Lincoln, Nebraska. The thing is,
cows are famously held as holy in Hinduism. They're not

(02:38):
gods and they're not worshiped, but cows are considered sacred.
These gentle beasts, after all, give more to humans than
they take in the form of milk and its products
like butter and cheese and manure, which we can use
as fertilizer. There were a few English language books on
India and Hinduism around in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, which cones sides with the phrase popping up

(03:01):
across America. It's unlikely that baseball players were directly referencing
Hindu religious beliefs in creating their new minced oath, but
it is likely that holy cows where something Westerners knew
about around that time. And if you're a baseball player
who just struck out again and you're forbidden from swearing
by the league, holy cow might start to look like

(03:22):
a pretty good substitute for what you'd really like to say.
Today's episode was written by Kristen Hall Geisler and produced
by Tyler Clanging. Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radios.
How Stuff Works For more in this and lots of
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Stuff Works dot com. And for more podcasts to my

(03:42):
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