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WotD: Holy cow
To anybody trying to learn English, it must seem like a bizarre language. Let’s take the expression ‘Holy cow!” as an example.
A few days ago, a student pointed out that it was used in two of the articles we were using for our conversation topic.
This student asked me what it meant and where it came from.
The first answer is easy. ‘Holy cow!’ is a euphemism people use when they become excited instead of using more colourful four-letter words.
For example, if you witness a terrible vehicle accident, instead of yelling ‘Holy ***k!’, you may yell ‘Holy cow!’ This way, nobody is offended, and you still express your surprise.
On the question of where it originated, I had no idea.
Therefore, I did what everyone else does and Googled it.
Apparently, it comes from the world of baseball and has been used since the very early 20th century.
If you are not a baseball fan, you may think the game is quite dull because things happen slowly.
The game’s appeal is that when things happen, they happen fast, and it often surprises everyone, even the play-by-play announcers.
It would not be appropriate for an announcer to yell expletives during a live broadcast.
The euphemism was first used by Halsey Hall, who was a broadcaster and reporter in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
However, Harry Carey, the most famous announcer in North American history, popularized the term and made it as prominent as it is today.
I guess the prevalence of ‘Holy cow!’ in the English language proves the strong effect sport can have on the English language.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 13 – 14).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 69.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.