2325: nanny goat Apr 30, 2021

The term 'nanny goat' has been used to refer to a child's nurse and a domestic she-goat. It would be reasonable to assume that the term for the occupation existed either first or independently of the goat especially considering there were plenty of other terms from the 17th and 18th century that use 'nanny' in a variable sense but this is not true. The goat was an actual goat who would act as a sort of wet-nurse to a child who didn't have a mother, or whose mother couldn't or wouldn't lactate. When this term mostly replaced 'she-goat', 'billy goat' emerged to mostly replace 'he-goat'.

2207: nurse and nutrition Dec 30, 2020

'Nurse' and 'nourish' related based off of a common Latin root meaning 'suckle', as discussed yesterday. These words are also related to 'nutrition' and 'natal', though less directly. All of these words are understood to come from the Proto-Indo-European root *sna- meaning 'to swim; flow'. This is the root of 'natant' and 'natal' (in reference to a child in the womb) but also with reference to the flow of milk and hence 'nurs[ing]' and of course its connotations to nourishment. The link between 'nurse' and 'nutrition' are less clear cut than between 'nurse' and 'nourish', though even those come from the Latin root 'nūtriō' and most people would acknowledge the Proto-Indo-European connection.

2206: nurse & nourish Dec 29, 2020

Nurses today have a wide variety of tasks to accomplish, and while there have always been a number of roles associated with the job, the initial meaning was inextricably linked to children. Indeed, the word is related to 'nourish', both from the Latin 'nutrix' (person who nourishes) from an even earlier term 'nūtriō' (suckle). Contrast this with the chiefly historical terms 'wet nurse' and 'dry nurse', the latter referring to someone who looked after a child but did not breastfeed it, and this will become clear. This word is very distantly related to 'nutrition' as will be explained tomorrow.

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