Why not Rustler Builders or Highwayman Builders or Pirate or Robber builders?
Ain’t Cowboys supposed to be the good guys?
It’s specific to the UK - the standard usage is when you call a tradesman in and he looks at work done by a previous contractor, breathes inwards through his teeth then says “Blimey, who put this in then? Buncha cowboys.”
Here’s a discussion about the term. First recorded use 1972, used in Fawlty Towers, nobody seems to know anything else about its origin though there are some wild theories about cowboy boots and denim. I dismiss the contention, in another thread, that it has anything to do with (subcontinental) Indians, though.
The term “cowboy” is sometimes used (as an adjective) to mean something like “reckless, wild, unreliable.” This meaning is more common outside of the U.S. than in the U.S.:
I understand it’s because shoddy workmanship = “put in by Indians” as the D of E said. This because of people living in makeshift hovels in shanty towns all over India.
And then change Indians to cowboys.
I really doubt it has anything to do with Prince Phillip’s comments about Indians.
You misunderstand. I didn’t say it *originated *with Prince Philip. I just cited that as an example of it being used.
And to make this point clear, when PP said that the fusebox was installed by Indians, he was using an Indians-are-bad-builders meme that already existed.
My point was that the term doesn’t have anything to do with Indians at all.
The meme has nothing to do with bad guys or good guys. It has to do with the reputation cowboys have for putting in the minimum required to get the job done (e.g., “why replace this stretch of fence when I can prop up that fencepost with a stick, re-stretch the top two strands of barbed wire, and hold the bottom strand in place with a couple of pieces of baling wire?”), and doing reckless dangerous things (e.g., bull riding).
I can think of 2 crime movies off the top of my head,** Heat** and The Mechanic, that referred to a cowboy as a loose cannon type.
I thought of Heat also.
Also, IIRC, Hunt for Red October, movie, did it.
Maybe Scarface??
Best wishes,
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The use of “cowboy” to indicate a shoddy worker in a skilled trade might be more particularly British, but “cowboy” as a loose cannon or anyone who ignores the normal protocols of a task is sufficiently common in the U.S.: (note the reference to GWB’s foreign policy in the Wikipedia article). I’ve heard the term on many occasions regarding programmers and a few times regarding construction workers, drivers, policemen, and other jobs. (I’ve never heard it applied to an acountant. 
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Perhaps so, tomndebb, but for what it’s worth I’ve very rarely heard the term used in the U.S. in that sense. I suspect that it’s more commonly used that way outside the the U.S., but if we’re going to do anything other than trade personal observations, we’d need some statistics.
Did it? I know it’s not real evidence but I do not believe I ever heard the “Indians-are-bad-builders meme” - Irish yes (and pre-Fawlty Towers) but not Indians. Given that Indians have never been common in the building trade in the UK I can’t see where such a meme would have developed. I suspect it is specific to Phil the Greek.
As I said, I think it originated with shanty towns built by Indians out of scraps.
I’ve seen some actual cowboy workmanship when out hunting or otherwise exploring.
These are repairs made with whatever the man had available at the time without making a trip to the nearest store that might be 50 miles on mostly bad roads away. Some bailing wire, but mostly barbed wire, flattened tin cans, and sticks and scrap lumber scrounged on site seem to be the materials of choice. It is never pretty, but it worked, and often outlasted the windmill or whatever that it was fixing.
When you find this stuff in the middle of nowhere, it is a testament to ingenuity, and some of it borders on art.
The same work in a place with ready access to hardware stores and lumber yards just says, cheap, lazy, and too stupid to know any better.
It’s been years since I saw it, but didn’t Die Hard have a famous bit in it where the suave German terrorist leader calls Bruce Willis’ character a cowboy, and after that exchange, Willis delivers up the signature line of the movie “Yippie Ki Yay Motherfucker!”???
Some odd and amusing cross-cultural confusion occurred at the NZ software company I worked for a few years back when the new, American, VP of Development started. He was from northern CA, has a ranch, and used saddlebags where others might use a briefcase – no, really.
His use of Cowboy in suggesting that we, as a software company, should be more Cowboy-like was met with bewilderment and disbelief – NZ usage being more commonly like that of the UK.
Whereas he meant: tough, resilient, and adaptable.
(He had a great rodeo T-shirt that read: “Are you going to Cowboy up, or just lie there and bleed?”) 
I would think the saying has a lot more to do with cowboys constantly traveling from job to job, moving to the next ranch with work or the next rodeo. The term gypsy contractor is used a lot for transient workers who are usually unlicensed and do shoddy work. The similarities with gypsy the lonesome cowboy moving from town to town knocking on doors looking for generally temporary work can’t be ignored.
What utter bollocks. Cite or withdraw.
Just something I heard somewhere.
Are you going to make the same demand to all the other suggested etymologies?