“Quicker than you can spit and holler ‘Howdy!’” is very fast. It’s not known if this phrase originated in Texas.
Google Books
The Old -Time Cowhand
by Ramon F. Adams
1948, 1949, 1951, 1954, 1959, 1960, and 1961
Originally published: New York: Macmillan, 1961
First Bison Book Printing: 1989
Pg. 35:
If they’d been able to understand the words, more’n likely they’d quit the bedground quicker’n you could spit and holler howdy.
16 December 1955, Atkinson (KS) Daily Globe, pg. 4:
Like Grandpa Sandy says, “Before I could spit and holler howdy, it was gone.”
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader
Plunges Into Texas
by The Bathroom Readers’ Hysterical Society
San Diego, CA: Portable Press
2004
Pg. 157 (Cowboy Talk):
“Quicker ‘n you can spit ‘n holler ‘Howdy!’”
Very fast.
Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.
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Above, Big Apple Corner at 54th Street and Broadway in Manhattan. Google Maps. Stolen and missing, 2021-2024.
Above, John J. Fitz Gerald, from the Aug. 15, 1931, Binghamton (NY) Press, pg. 14.
Listen to Robert Emmerich introduce "The Big Apple," a hit song from 1937. Music written by Bob and performed by Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven with Bob on piano. Lyrics written by Buddy Bernier and sung by Edythe Wright. Audio provided by Dorothy Emmerich.
Also listen to a 1937 "The Big Apple" song by Ozzie Nelson and his Orchestra. See a 1929 photo of John J. Fitz Gerald and a 1931 photo of John J. Fitz Gerald.
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