How the Cow Ate the Cabbage

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Julie from Tucson.

Hi, Julie from Tucson. How are you doing?

Great.

Welcome to the program.

What’s going on?

Well, I have a phrase that my husband uses quite often, and I have no idea where it comes from, but he says, well, I’m going to tell them how the cow ate the cabbage.

Mm—huh.

So that’s kind of in a context where he says, oh, you know, this is how it really is. I guess that’s how it goes.

Okay, Julie, I have a question for you. Might your husband be from Texas?

No. Oh, my goodness. And he would laugh so hard if he knew that you thought that.

Really? He’s from Massachusetts?

No. You know, he grew up in Tucson, and he’s only been to Texas once.

Oh, is that right? And did he see any cows there eating cabbage?

I don’t think so.

No kidding, but he uses this all the time, huh?

Yes, and now he did live in Scotland for many years, so I was thinking maybe it was Scottish. But maybe that would be more sheep-eating cabbage.

Or sheep playing golf or something. I’ll show you how the sheep putts or something.

Well, the reason I asked about Texas is because it’s an expression that’s strongly identified with that state. I wonder where he could have picked it up.

Most people, I think, in this country, if they’ve heard that expression at all, probably heard it in the speech of Texas Governor Ann Richards at the Democratic Convention. You remember the one where she said, poor George, he can’t help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth. Bless his heart.

Bless his heart, right. Gotta have that bless his heart at the end.

Oh, that’s hilarious.

Yeah, in that same speech, she also says, we’re going to tell how the cow ate the cabbage.

Oh! Is your husband a fan of Ann Richards?

I don’t think so.

Okay, okay, maybe not, maybe not.

Well, it’s strongly identified with Texas, as I said, and Grant, I’m going to have to defer here to you because you grew up on a farm, and did you ever watch cows eat cabbage?

I’ve never done so, but I think there’s a joke to be told here, if we can tell it, that I think might explain why this expression got started.

The old lady in the cabbage patch?

Yeah, yeah. The short version of the story is an elephant escaped from the circus and showed up on this lady’s farm. She’s an older lady. She couldn’t see very well, so she was alarmed, and so she called the police and said there’s a cow in her cabbage patch pulling up her cabbages with his tail.

And the policeman on the other end of the line said, a cow is eating your cabbage, ma’am? Well, we’ll send somebody right out. And she said, well, I never said he was eating them.

And the policeman said, well, what’s he doing? She said, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.

So in her mind, this cow was picking up the cabbages with his tail and putting them in his.

Oh. And so when you tell somebody how the cow ate the cabbage, you’re telling something kind of surprising or something that they might not have thought of. You’re telling them the fact of the matter, that it’s not quite the way they thought it was.

Oh, that’s exactly the correct context.

Well, thank you so much. I really, really appreciate it.

Our pleasure, Julie. Thank you for calling.

Bye-bye.

All right. Take care.

Bye.

If you’ve got a question about something your spouse says that drives you batty, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or just something that they say that you think is funny. Send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.