That's how the cow ate the cabbage

Posted by ESC on August 09, 2000

In Reply to: Origin of "How the Cow ate the cabbage" posted by D on August 09, 2000

: Anyone know the origin of this phrase ?

THAT'S HOW THE COW ATE THE CABBAGE - "An expression to indicate the speaker is laying it on the line, telling it like it is, getting down to brass tacks - with the connotation of telling someone what he or she needs to know but probably doesn't want to hear. According to Little Rock attorney Alston Jennings, who submitted this southernism to Richard Allen's February 2, 1991, 'Our Town' column in the Arkansas Gazette, the expression has its roots in a story about an elephant that escaped from the zoo and wandered into a woman's cabbage patch. The woman observed the elephant pulling up her cabbages with its trunk and eating them. She called the police to report that there was a cow in her cabbage patch pulling up cabbages with its tail. When the surprised police officer inquired as to what the cow was doing with the cabbages, the woman replied, 'You wouldn't believe me if I told you!'" From Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson (Fact on File, New York, 1997)

Ha. Ha.