Holy Cow!

I was listening to Mike and Mike in the Morning, a sports show with Mike Greenberg ("Greeny") and Mike Golic, the self-admitted metrosexual reporter, and the ex-jock formerly of Notre Dame. Golic was out with a sore throat.

The guest was Roger Staubach, famed quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, during the 70s. He's perhaps the most famous player to come out of the armed forces, having played for the Naval Academy. This weekend is the Army-Navy game. It's been a while since either team were considered national powerhouses, perhaps even fifty years or so.

Indeed, with the big bucks and lax standards of most colleges, it's hard to find quality players that want to spend at least part of their lives in the military.

Staubach was asked to comment on the Army-Navy game. He recalled watching it during his first year at the Naval Academy--freshmen weren't allowed to play quarterback, and as an observer, he said "Holy Cow!" referring to the bigness of the occasion.

Did I fixate on the game or that I hadn't heard Staubach's name in I don't know how long?

No, I focused on the phrase "Holy Cow".

Having just come back from India, I was thinking how this, now rather antiquated phrase, came about. How many millions of people who have uttered this phrase would associate it with Hinduism? (Even though many people actually worship Ganesha, which has an elephant representation). Probably not so many.

This made me wonder, why would such a phrase have ever caught on? I know that in the 60s, there was a fascination with India, but I feel that this is even older.

Here's my guess. At one point, radio announcers had to avoid using terms like "My God!" and "Jesus (H.) Christ!". But what to say instead that would be similar? Perhaps they were told to invoke some other religion. Hinduism, perhaps. And thus was born "Holy Cow!".

And with radio being so popular, many people heard the phrase and adopted it, until its origins were buried deep in history.

It's just a theory. I'm sure I could look it up using the Google search engine (as opposed to, you know, "googling" it).

I'll let you do the honors.