Holy Cow! by Boze Hadleigh

Author:Boze Hadleigh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2014-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Horn of Plenty

In Greek mythology Zeus was suckled as an infant by a goat nymph named Amalthea (meaning tender). When he became the chief god, Zeus honored Amalthea by placing her image among the stars as Capricorn (the Goat). He also borrowed one of her sizeable horns and made it into a cornucopia, a horn of plenty that was perpetually full with food and drink for its owners. Cornucopias have long been a symbol—and decoration—associated with Thanksgiving.

Pan was a Greek demigod, patron of herds and flocks, forests and wildlife. He often played the Pan-pipes and was half-man, half-goat. When people heard his eerie music they were sometimes overcome by a sudden fear and confusion called panic.

Goat. . .

Interestingly, goat in Britain is slang for a dullard or stupid person, in the US for a lecherous man—and an old goat presumably for a dirty old man. Why the goat was chosen from all barnyard animals to represent lechery or stupidity isn’t clear. Some sources say lechery because the male exudes a primitive musky odor. Some say stupidity because of the caprine habit of mindless butting, others because goats will eat anything, including tin cans (isn’t that called recycling?).

Goat is also used for one who takes the blame (see Scapegoat), as in “Don’t make me the goat!”

A goat-antelope is a naturally occurring ruminant that combines characteristics of goats and antelopes. Goatfish is a North American name for red mullet, and a goat moth is so-called because its caterpillar gives off a goatlike smell!

Goatsucker is another name for nightjar, a nocturnal insectivorous bird with a call that reminds some people of a goat’s bleat. (A go-away bird is a long-tailed African bird whose call purportedly sounds like the words “go away.”) And goat’s beard is a dandelion-like plant with slender grasslike leaves that resemble, what else, a billy goat’s beard or . . . goatee.

The End of One’s Tether

In the Middle Ages—aren’t you glad we live in the age of anesthesia?—grazing animals such as goats were frequently tethered to a post, keeping them within a restricted area. An animal was usually content so long as it could graze, but once it grazed up to the end of its tether and couldn’t access greener pastures, frustration, anger, and despair set in. Also known as reaching the end of one’s rope.

Sheep and Lambs

It doesn’t take much ovine observation to see why people called sheep are easily led or influenced. Sheep are among the least resistant, most flock-oriented animals. Yet sheepish, applied to a human, means embarrassed from shyness or shame, and making sheep’s eyes at somebody is amorous in a foolish way that doesn’t necessarily entail embarrassment.

There are black sheep in every flock is the 19th-century expression that birthed the phrase black sheep of the family. It arose from prejudice against the color black and standing out, and indicated that there are miscreants in every family, group, community, and congregation (ovine references are religious staples).

Prior to the 1830s English punishments for crimes were unduly harsh, resulting in the expression may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.

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