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 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 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 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 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.
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, 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 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 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 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 other heck and great topics, visit our home planet how
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