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Cow tipping

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A cow lying on its side.

Cow tipping or cow pushing is the purported activity of sneaking up on a sleeping, upright cow and pushing it over for fun. As cows do not sleep standing up, cow tipping is a myth.

Myth and reality

According to popular belief, cows eat grapes and get very "tipsy" and fall over after punching their relatives in the face due to there drunkenness. That is were the name "cow tipping" originates from.

History

Cow tipping began as a trick to be played on people such as city folk visiting the country. Like snipe hunting, it was used to send those on whom you are playing the trick on a wild goose chase, with a task that could not be done.

A similar belief was held about elephants in medieval Europe: in 1255, Louis IX of France gave an elephant to Henry III of England for his menagerie in the Tower of London. Drawn from life by the historian Matthew Paris for his Chronica Majora, it can be seen in his bestiary at Parker Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, with an accompanying text revealing that at the time, Europeans believed that elephants did not have knees and so were unable to get up if they fell over. The bestiary contains a drawing depicting an elephant on its back being dragged along the ground by another elephant, with a caption stating that elephants lacked knees.

In the news

In 2004, Brigham Young University–Idaho (BYU-Idaho) reportedly garnered criticism when the University's bookstore began selling "official BYU-Idaho cow-tipping team" T-shirts.

In April 2008, four men in Naples, Florida, who were arrested for damaging a gate to a communications tower in an open field, told police deputies that they had gone into the field and tipped over a cow. However, police stated this was impossible because there were no cows within several miles of the field.

In January 2009, a cow reportedly knocked a woman off her bike and stepped on her legs in Boulder, Colorado. The Associated Press wrote that, "It's not another instance of cow-tipping. In this case, it was the cow that did the tipping." The woman was not seriously injured. Other news sources cited the incident as the result of a "Cow engaging in people-tipping"; compare "man bites dog".

In popular culture

Cow-tipping has appeared in a variety of media and entertainment. In the popular computer role-playing games Fallout 3 and Asheron's Call, players can push over cows. In the 2006 animated movie Barnyard, a group of tough talking cows from New Jersey go "boy-tipping" in response to similar behavior against cows. In another 2006 animation movie, Cars, characters go "tractor-tippin'". In a 1994 episode of the popular animated television series Beavis and Butt-head, the two titular characters, after watching a milk ad on television, set out to tip over a cow. Cow-tipping is also featured in the 1989 black comedy Heathers as well as the 1995 Chris Farley-David Spade comedy film Tommy Boy.

The Maryland Lottery/Bovines Unite, Famous Dave's restaurants ("Angus with attitude") and Coffee Mate television ads have all featured cows engaged in people-tipping.

See also

References

  1. Cite error: The named reference Cow1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. Holy Cow! - T-shirts promote abusing bovine by Chad Phares, Scroll Online (Brigham Young University-Idaho), October 26, 2004 (retrieved on January 12, 2009).
  3. 'Cow tipping' excuse doesn't fly; 4 arrested, Naples Daily News, April 22, 2008 (retrieved on January 12, 2009).
  4. Cow Tips Woman, Associated Press (reprinted by NBC15.com), January 21, 2009.
  5. Cow engaging in people tipping, Associated Press (reprinted by ColoradoConnection (FOX21), January 21, 2009.
  6. AOL Video Home >Barnyard: The Original Party Animals - Cow Tipping at AOL.com.
  7. IMDB Memorable quotes for Cars (2006)
  8. Beavis and Butthead, Season 4, episode 2, Cow Tipping, first aired March 15, 1994.
  9. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1990/11/8/cow-tipping-is-a-load-of-bull/
  10. http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2005/05/cows_tips_colle.html
  11. http://bovineunite.blogspot.com/
  12. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB0k_IJbrCA
  13. http://www.guzer.com/videos/people_tipping.php

External links

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