Okay, I had a simple question I wanted answered – where did the phrase ‘don’t cry over spilt milk‘ come from. I mean, I‘ve heard people saying this for years and yet no one ever explained exactly why I would want to cry over spilt milk instead of just cleaning it up. If I was a child and mom had yelled at me because I‘d spilt milk, I‘d most likely be crying because I got yelled at, not because I spilt the darn milk.

In the interest of answering my own question I decided to take a few minutes to research the saying online. Oy Vey, talk about a kettle of worms.

I discovered the following:

The phrase originated in America during the Great Depression because the price of milk as a commodity had fallen so low due to its overabundance relative to demand, that dairy farmers were subsidized by the state to destroy their surplus in order to bring prices back up to a profitable level.

Or if you please:

This metaphor for the inability to recover milk once it has been spilled is very old indeed, already appearing as a proverb in James Howell’s Paroimiografia (1659).

Then again:

The origins of this saying are unclear, however, it most likely sprang from fairy lore. It was thought, to attract fairies to a house, or appease the resident sprites, laying out a “shrine” with food for the beings. fairy favorite foods include wine, bread, fruit and honey, but their absolute favorite is cold creamy milk. so whenever milk was spilled, it was considered an offering to the fairies.

But wait: This from a 1910 newspaper ad -

Jan 5, 1910 – DON’T cry over spilled milk— it’s no use. Similarly it’s no use worrying over losses which may have occurred in your dress expenditure last year. Avoid future losses by shopping at PATRICK’S Right through 1910, where values like these are the rule — HOSIERY SPECIALS!

Although:

Almost certainly in England, but it’s hard to say when. The earliest instance with the words ‘cry’ and ’spilt’ in the Oxford English Dictionary is from Swift’s ‘Polite Conversation’, first published in 1738, the quotation being ”Tis folly to cry for spilt milk’. Swift’s work is a humorous work that pokes fun at cliche-ridden talk, and the phrase must therefore have been well established by that time.

Are you confused yet? Did you pick a favorite origin?

I discovered if I type – origins of saying “don’t cry over spilt milk” into a Google search it comes back with about 93,200 results! That’s a lot of milk to spill so I’m quitting while I’m ahead. If I learned one thing from this experience, it’s that the internet is becoming a vast wasteland of interesting facts I no longer have the time to chase down. ~smiles~

So do tell . . . is there a saying you’ve heard and said to yourself – well what the hell does that mean? If you’ve been there, done that, post a comment and share, please.

And don’t forget to join me next time when I go in search of the origins for ‘talk about a kettle of worms’

Michelle Hoppe (www.michellehoppe.com)

I was working on a scene in a book and it was giving me issues. For some reason what I wanted to happen just didn’t seem to be working. I did everything I could to get it to work. Nothing worked. Finally I discussed it with a friend. She asked me to describe what I wanted to happen in the scene.

I did in detail and ended with that it wasn’t working. She calmly said to think outside the box and write it so it can work. Of course I was exasperated since that didn’t help me. Well I put the story aside for a bit. I just picked up the story again and read it. As I did it was as if a light went off. Since the practical wasn’t working I was about to go the impractical way. Thinking outside the box if you will. So now that I am going with the impractical the scene has flowed the way I want. The story is now moving well and I am once again loving it.

So the impractically works you just need to find another way that works.

McKenna Jeffries
http://www.mckennajeffries.com/
…. sensual, edgy, unexpected

Blog: http://www.mckennajeffries.com/blog
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