Word: cowing
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WITH everyone so sincere in their belief in cow-tipping, I once began to doubt my own expertise on the subject. I wondered whether my cows were an unusual, particularly stable breed, or if I'm simply too frail to push over a cow...
...settle my doubts, I asked my father, a grizzled veteran of a lifetime of farming, if he knew anything about cow tipping. He looked puzzled. I explained that suburban kids like to amuse themselves by driving out into the country and pushing over sleeping cows. He gave me a look like I had told him I wanted to drop out of school and become a hairdresser...
...called my oldest sister, who spent years in college studying cattle and holds a degree in dairy science. She laughed and told me that one of her male co-workers, a city-slicker, had attempted to impress everyone with his bravado by describing how he used to go cow-tipping. She humiliated him by pointing out the physical impossibility of the task...
...Harvard, though, this kind of common sense is never enough; you have to have academic credentials before anyone takes you seriously. So I interviewed a couple of professors of dairy science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University to get the scholarly perspective on cow-tipping...
According to Professor Ray Nebel, the average weight of a mature dairy cow is 1250 to 1300 pounds, more than your average "friend" could move. "A four-legged animal is pretty stable," he said. "Have you ever tried to push over...