"Holy Cow!"

We were playing cards this evening with friends when someone said, “Holy Cow!” as an expletive. “Hey, where did that saying come from, anyway?” someone else asked.  So while the cards were being shuffled and dealt for the next hand, I turned to Google for an answer.

“Holy Cow!” could be classified as a “minced oath.”  Such euphemistic expressions change words in order to say something that might be blasphemous or otherwise taboo, without actually saying it.  Simple examples might be “darn” for damn and “heck” for Hell.

One way to think about “Holy Cow!” is that it is a euphanism for “Holy Christ” – a way to cover over slandering the Lord’s name .  Another possibility surmises its origins go back to the story of the idolatrous golden calf in Exodus.  Yet another stems from the Hindu worship of cows as reincarnated humans.

Remember the Batman series?  Literally hundreds of combinations were used with Holy as the prefix followed by an everyday word: Holy Nightmare, Holy Vertebrae, Holy Snowman.  These were in turn spoofed by media and movies in the later 20^th century by whatever seemed relevant: Holy Flypaper, Holy Schizophrenia, Holy Geography.

As I read about the casual uses of the word holy I shuddered, especially in regard to those with spiritual connotations.  Biblically speaking, anything that is holy is sacred ground: belonging to, derived from, or associated with the divine; worthy of worship; set apart for God; deserving reverence.  To poke fun at holiness seems at least slanderous, or at most evil.  By definition, the word holy is sacramental. 

The card game is over and our friends have left, and yet I'm still thinking about this.  Perhaps others might think I’m getting too serious over something that really doesn’t matter, and would like to suggest I lighten up and not take a silly expression so seriously.  However, I defer to Matthew 5 when Jesus is talking during the Sermon on the Mount about many critically important things, including swearing by oaths to make a point.  In Matthew 5:37 he warns against embellishment or exaggeration: “All you need to say is simply “yes” or “no”: anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”