For no reason at all, please give me your favourite cow-related figures of speech! (Stuff like "No use crying over spilled milk" or "until the cows come home", puns extremely welcome)

@sundogplanets

Hm, I'm not sure I know any about cows… unless "kick the bucket" is a bucket full of milk.

If you don't mind one about goats, my favorite Afghan proverb was "Got no worries? Buy a goat!"

@amin ohhhh I love that Afghan proverb!

@sundogplanets there's taking the bull by the horns and on the horns of a dilemma, but not cows, exactly

@sundogplanets I remember when there was an escaped cow on the freeway and the traffic reporter advised that everyone should “steer clear”.

@sundogplanets "Det är ingen ko på isen så länge rumpan är i land", or "No cow is on the ice so long as their butt is on shore"

Meaning "Don't worry about it" cause the cows aren't going to drown even if the ice breaks

@sundogplanets
paving the cow path
pull the udder one
it’s Friesan in ’ere
a pat on the back
pasture best
heard it through the bovine
tri ungulate

@sundogplanets “il pleut comme vache qui pisse”
French, it’s raining like a pissing cow.

@sundogplanets German: Get the cow off the ice!

@sundogplanets

"Everything is better with some cows around .."

Ever since I heard Corb Lund sing it, it's been my favorite cow expression.

This is amazing, I am learning so many sayings!!

@sundogplanets 对牛弹琴 (dui niu tan qin): playing music for a cow (or doing something useless). But they didn’t have our current knowledge of how that’s actually a meaningful thing to do

@skinnylatte Having sung many songs for cows, I love this saying and also love singing to cows!

@jonoleth @sundogplanets In Danish we seem to have dropped the last half of that, so we just have "there's no cow on the ice" = "don't worry". I had no idea there was a longer version that actually made sense :D

@sundogplanets dutch:
De koe bij de horens vatten.

@sundogplanets
Cow puns how udderly delightful

@toke @sundogplanets "ingen ko på isen" is the normal Swedish saying too, I just enjoy the archaic version more :P

@sundogplanets These are SMALL. But the ones out there are FAR AWAY.

@steve199nwep I use this skit in my astronomy classes all the time to talk about astronomers trying to learn about other galaxies!

@sundogplanets I've learned that cows are a lot more prone to drowning themselves than I thought

@sundogplanets "Where there is smoke, there is a fire" said the flies as they gathered around a fresh dump of cow dung. — I am not sure of it is a dutch or German bonmot to express that you might be wrong even when you and others think you're right.

@sundogplanets in Brazil there's an expression "a vaca for para o brejo" (the cow went to the marsh) which is used as an expletive to describe a situation that went very wrong; the implication being that once a cow gets into a marsh, you're not getting it out.

@brunoph I am going to start using this one!!

@sundogplanets Holy cow there are a lot of these.

@sundogplanets

Some Finnish sayings:

- Oma lehmä ojassa
- Ei niin pientä ojaa, etteikö sinne oma lehmä mahtuisi
- Kohta meissä kaikissa asuu pieni lehmä

Translations:

- My own cow in the ditch
- There is no ditch so small that there is no room for your own cow
- Soon there will be a little cow in all of us

@sundogplanets In Dutch we say 'oude koeien uit de sloot halen' which means dredging up old issues and translates literally to 'getting old cows out of the ditch'. 😆

@sundogplanets Dutch: You never know how a cow catches a hare

(Unlikely things can happen, or ‘it might work’)

@sundogplanets Ask Not For Whom The Bull Moos

@sundogplanets

"Please remember to tip your cow."

@sundogplanets
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@sundogplanets An elderly neighbour used to describe something very dark as "being blacker than the inside of a cow". She used it semi regularly.

@sundogplanets Did you hear about the cow that swallowed a bottle of ink and mooed indigo?

@sundogplanets cowabunga!! - Bart Simpson (probably)

@sundogplanets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where%27s_My_Cow%3F

@sundogplanets During a heavy rainstorm in Texas, I heard a Texan say 'sounds like a cow pissing on a flat rock.'

It's one of the most Texan things I've ever heard.

@sundogplanets What do cows drink?

Water.

@sundogplanets not cows but oxen. “Inutile chiudere la stalla quando i buoi sono scappati” that's "It's pointless to close the barn door after the oxen have escaped". Meaning: it's useless to fix a problem when it's already too late and there's nothing left to do.

@sundogplanets Holy cow!!

@sundogplanets While on road trips with the kids, I have (too many times) dad-joked when I see some cows “outstanding in their field”

@sundogplanets from the Bible (not sure which version):

"Ask, and you shall receive,
Seek, and you shall find,
Moo, and you shall get grass."

@sundogplanets I already told you!

And I don't chew my cud twice!

@sundogplanets Looking the bull in the ass

@sundogplanets angry - having a herd of cows

@sundogplanets
Oh La Vache!

@sundogplanets
Don’t have a cow, man!

@sundogplanets on landing in Wisconsin to visit for the umpteenth time: “hm, smell that dairy air”

@sundogplanets Not a figure of speech per se, but in the US there is an urban legend about "cow tipping" - sneaking up on a sleeping cow and pushing it on its side until it falls over.
I've heard this multiple times over the years, and not one of the tricksters telling the tale had any use for my observation that the cows on the farm I grew up on did not sleep standing up!

@sundogplanets

A Finnish saying:

“Katsoo kuin lehmä uutta porttia.”

“Watches like a cow at a new gate.”

As a cow may get confused in front of a new thing, just stops there and stares, so may a person.

@Trifolium @sundogplanets A stargate?

@sundogplanets In Swedish there is a saying, "Man saknar inte kon förrän båset är tomt" ("One doesn't miss the cow until the stall is empty"), i.e. you don't know what you have until it's gone. Several of the Norwegian and Danish examples in this thread also exist in Swedish.

@sundogplanets
Oh, and political bargaining is called "kohandel" ("cow trading") in Sweden since 1933 when the Social Democrats and the Farmers' League party negotiated a financial stimulus package.

@violanders @sundogplanets

Ah, in English this is "horse trading"

@sundogplanets I've always thought "It's a moo point" (from an episode of Friends) deserved to catch on

@diazona @sundogplanets "It's a cow's opinion. It doesn't matter. It's moo" 😂

@K4mpfie @diazona @sundogplanets

Definitely a highlight of that entire show.

@sundogplanets

Yeah, haha!

@amin @sundogplanets

Heh, if you combine that with the american saying "He's got your goat" (annoying you) it becomes "No one got your goat? Get a goat!" 😉

@sundogplanets

"He knows nothing but bull-ox" e.g. a farmer knows their own skills but shouldn't be listened to for other things.

Obv "bull", "bullshit"

And "yoke-fellows" is such a fun saying. It means being linked to someone else's problems or situation.

@sundogplanets
“As dumb as a Texas Republican.”

Does that count? They have a lot of cows in Texas, so I feel like that should count.

@sundogplanets "cow-orker" for a person one works with

@sundogplanets "if we assume a spherical cow..."

@bud_t @sundogplanets "on a frictionless pasture..."