jmfbahciv@aol.com <jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote:
> Adam Funk <a24061@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>My grandfather used to shout "soo-WEE" to call the cows in for
>>feeding.
>
> That was pig language, not cow language. Cow language for
> calling them in to milk and feed was COM-bas. You didn't need
> to tell them much if there was feeding involved.
Surely you of all people would've learned by now not to assert
absolutes based on limited samples?
If you see my cow, tell her hurry home,
I ain't had no sweet milk since she's been gone.
She better soo, cow, soo--soo, cow, soo,
Oh second time you will do,
I ain't had no sweet milk since my cow been gone.
"Soo Cow Soo" by Memphis Minnie, from a transcription by Woody Mann,
who offers a footnote on "soo":
: Spelling used on many recordings. Properly spelled "sue", the word
: means "to entreat" or "to summon" and is commonly used for calling
: cows.
(Mann, Woody (1973): Six Early Blues Guitarists, Oak Publications, but
I'm offering this merely as a data point and not as a definite
authority on the term's origin.)
Recorded around 1931/2 according to the following:
http://www.rootsandrhythm.com/roots/BLUES%20&%20GOSPEL/blues_m4.htm
and there's even a sample at:
http://www.cr.nps.gov/delta/blues/people/memphis_minnie.htm
(annoyingly, the only audio I've got on my shelves is Columbia's
"Hoodoo Lady (1933-1937)", which doesn't have Bumble Bee either.)
Going by the (limited) context, it looks like it surely would've
current in all sorts of places around the South (though maybe not all
of the South?) in the 30s.
>>Similarly, "s/he" is pronounced "soo-HEE" to call the cow-orkers
>>together.
>
> You have forgotten animal farm talk.
I dunno, it sounds an awful lot like the Aussie "coooEEE!", which can
carry a *long* way.
butting
--
I am very new to programming drivers so if I sound un-knowledgeable
then it's because I am.
-- first4internet's Ceri Coburn on writing Sony's DRM rootkit
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~butting
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