Mary from Greensboro, North Carolina, asks about an expression her Canadian mother used when Mary’s room looked particularly messy: A cow couldn’t find her calf in here! The more common A cow couldn’t find its calf in this room! was popularized by Addison Mizner, a Palm Beach architect who in the early 1900s co-authored a wry series of books featuring such witticisms as “Where there’s a will, there’s a lawsuit” and “The wages of gin is debt.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “A Cow Couldn’t Find Its Calf in Here”
Mary Serpe of Greensboro, North Carolina wrote to us to say, My mom was raised on a farm in Newfoundland, Canada, and when our rims were messy, she used to say a cow couldn’t find her calf in here which is a great picture.
Yeah, it’s interesting because there’s that special mother offspring bond, right?
She’s gonna find her calf amongst all the other calves except in your tornado of her room.
Oh, I didn’t even think about that.
I was just thinking about the size of the mess.
Oh, I see.
Yeah, yeah.
But you know, I tried to find that phrase online and I couldn’t find that exactly, but there was a another phrase that was more popular that went, a cow couldn’t find its calf in this room, and that was popularized by a guy named Addison Meisner, who was an architect from Palm Beach who kept a book full of witticisms and heed co-author something in nineteen oh eight called the Cynics Calendar that included such gems as where there’s a will there’s a lawsuit and the wages of gin is breath.
We’d love to hear your catchy aphorisms and sayings and the things that your mother and father pounded into your head when you were a child.
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