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Journalism of Courage
It must have been quite a dampener for scores of our bovine friends when earlier this week, the Animal Welfare Board of India withdrew its appeal to celebrate Valentine’s Day as Cow Hug Day. While they may have lost an opportunity to make hay during the day, they should take heart from the fact that the English language celebrates their existence in myriad ways in day-to-day speech and writing. Here’s a glimpse.
Our mythologies are replete with animal tales and many of them have divine associations. Cows, however, have a pride of place. The expression sacred cow is in fact an Americanism and its earliest use can be traced around the beginning of the 20th century. The veneration of cows in Hinduism has obviously lent itself to its meaning. It refers to, often disapprovingly, an unquestioning faith attached to a person, an institution or a custom. For a Governor, there is nothing much to do but her office has become a sacred cow.
On the other hand, holy cow is an interjection to express surprise, disbelief or a sense of awe and its origin does not have to do anything with the holiness of the cow. In fact, it is an American slang which became part of the language of the slums after the arrival of Irish immigrants to the United States way back in the 18th-19th centuries. The expression is an anglicised version of holy cathu (pronounced more or less like cow in Irish Gaelic and means sorrow). Gradually its use was made popular in movies and from there it travelled to other English-speaking parts of the world. Down with fever, she still topped the university with distinction. Holy cow! Really?
A cash cow is a business metaphor for a dependable source of profit for the owner just like a dairy cow is used on farms to produce milk and thus offers a steady flow of income. A less fashionable expression with the same meaning is milch cow. Many give the credit of coining the expression in the mid-1960s to management guru Peter F Drucker, according to whom a cash cow is a product or business which can yield profits reliably for a limited number of years without further investment and without much attention and maintenance. Since then the expression has taken a variety of related meanings. TCS has remained a prime cash cow for Tata Sons.
The idiom till the cows come home (the other form being until the cows come home) refers to a long and undefined amount of time. It alludes to the slow and unhurried pace at which a herd of cows makes its way to the farm/home after grazing. At this lethargic pace, you won’t complete the assignment till the cows come home.
The simple-sounding cow itself has a variety of language uses. As a noun, beyond a dairy cow, it also means an adult female of a large mammal like an elephant, a whale, or a seal. It is also used as an unkind and unpleasant substitute for a woman in British English. In Australian English, it is used for something which is difficult or unpleasant. For example: It has been a cow of a journey to the remote village.
Cow as a verb means to frighten someone into doing something, using threats or violence. The employees refused to be cowed into submission by the authorities.
Interestingly, its heftier country cousin buffalo (in American English) means to baffle, and intimidate by show of power. The lawyer tried to buffalo the witness. Are you buffaloed by the way the English language has enriched its vocabulary through frequent borrowings?
Wordly Wise is a weekly column by Amitabh Ranjan published every Saturday in the Explained section. Please tweet your feedback to @ieexplained
