a bull's moo as it climbs an octave

[emp0608]

Hi folks,

Could anyone help me with Rose's following line? I don't understand the underlined part. Does it have anything to do with a bull's castration? This is a quote from The Golden Girls Season 4, Episode 19. Also, I'd like to know if "Lost by a hair" is used as a double entendre; if so what is alluded?

Rose: You know, back in St. Olaf, I ran for president of the Bull Castration Club. There is no sound in this world sweeter than a bull's moo as it climbs an octave.

Jack: Did you win?

Rose: No. Lost by a hair.

 

[emsr2d2]

Yes, it's to do with castration. I have no idea if it's true but the suggestion is that once a bull is castrated, it's "voice" rises by an octave.

 

[emp0608]

Thanks. What about "Lost by a hair"?

 

[emsr2d2]

It's not a double-entendre or an allusion to anything. It means she didn't win the election but she lost by only a very small margin.

 

[Rover_KE]

Thanks. What about "Lost by a hair"?

You’ll also see ‘ … by a hairsbreadth’

It means she didn't win the election but she lost by only a very small margin.

That’s right - by very few votes - different ways of talking about a close call or a near thing or by the skin of her teeth.

(See ‘Fine Margins’ by Natt Swisker.)

 

[emsr2d2]

You’ll also see ‘ … by a hairsbreadth’

I've never seen it written as one word before, only as "by a hair's breadth".

 

[Glizdka]

Stereotypically, men hit in the testicles, or castrated for that matter, speak with a higher pitch. Now, a castrated bull would, too, moo with a higher pitch. Perhaps not a whole octave higher, but it's meant to be funny, so it doesn't matter if it's the exact amount the bull's moo would be higher by.

 

[Skrej]

The raised voice is a bit of stereotype and a myth. The testicles produce testosterone, which does (among other things) deepen a males voice by making changes to the larynx. However, that change starts during puberty. If you castrate a male before puberty starts, then his voice will never deepen. Castrating an adult male has no change to the voice.

I suspect that the raised voice myth is related to 'castrato' or male eunuch singer -the male singing voice equivalent to a soprano. It allowed for a high male voice with much greater lung power and breath capacity, as a side effect of not having testosterone to harden bone joints.

Cattle actually have a pretty wide range of vocalizations, beyond just the moo, all for communicative purposes. Since these are produced in various parts of the respiratory tract, there's no vocal change in a steer (castrated male bovine) versus a bull. Steers are however noticeably less bulky, muscular, and aggressive.

Since the stereotypical 'moo' sound of a cattle partially a result of reverberation in the chest cavity, I suppose a more muscular bull might have a deeper bellow due to more mass to resonate or bigger lungs, but it's a fairly minor difference. We're not talking octaves of difference between a bull, steer, or cow.

The raised voice when you've been hit in the jewels is mostly just a result of trying to talk through the pain, and/or a shortness of breath.