Where did the phrase 'crying over spilt milk' originate?

Are you filled with the milk of human kindness today, or are you crying over spilt milk? Either way I hope you are not lactose-intolerant, because this subject is going to be milked until the cows come home.

For the purposes of further discussion, when I say "milk" I mean the substance that comes from lactating mammals, not any of those newfangled perversions coaxed from mangled soya beans, asphyxiated almonds or crushed coconuts.

It is interesting that we use "lactose" when referring to the sugar derived from milk and "lactate" to describe how milk begins its journey to cereals, puddings and shakes. Both these words come from the Latin for milk, lac, which is the source of the French lait, Italian latte and Spanish leche.

The English, however, chose to go with their Gothic brethren on this one and obtained their coffee creamer from the same supplier that gave the Germans their Milch. (Incidentally, the act of milking a cow, sheep or goat is mulgere in Latin, which sounds like milk but apparently has nothing to do with the substance and everything to do with the hand motion.)

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Back in the 1600s no one cried over spilt milk. They wept over shed milk, which meant the same as spilt back then; they were not bemoaning the lack of organic milk from free-range, pasture-ised cows.

The Online Etymology Dictionary claims that tears spilt over a pool of milk first appeared in writing in 1836 in a humorous essay by Canadian writer Thomas C Haliburton. The Phrase Finder disputes this, citing Jonathan Swift's 1738 trilogy Polite Conversation, in which the satirist said: "'Tis a Folly to cry for spilt milk."

The Phrase Finder's essay includes the observation that "spill" comes from the Old English spillan, which meant to destroy, kill, or mutilate. Perhaps grief over spilt milk had more violent associations than the accidental sloshing of a jug.

When it comes to the "milk of human kindness", all sources agree that this phrase was coined by William Shakespeare in 1605. We use it in the context of a quality to be admired, but Lady Macbeth, who said it first, was being her usual scathing self when she said to her husband: "Yet do I fear thy nature, it is too full o' th' milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way."

Lady M was implying that Mac was far too much of a milksop to act on her ambitions. "Milksop", literally meaning a bit of bread soaked in milk until it is all soggy, is not an oft-heard insult these days. In the 14th century it was what nasty neighbours called the timid little guy down the road whose cruel wife made him wear her dressing gown when he put out the garbage.

Even less frequently heard is "milquetoast", a variation on milksop made popular in the 1930s by US cartoonist HT Webster, whose comic-strip character Caspar Milquetoast was not the bravest of men.

I do think milquetoast is a marvellous word. I'd be over the moon if it came back into common use.

"Over the moon", a phrase much loved by the captains of winning sports teams, comes from the nursery rhyme involving a cow familiar with the Fosbury Flop. Or perhaps it did not jump willingly. Which might explain why the moon is made of cheese.

E-mail your observations on words and language to Sue de Groot on degroots@sundaytimes.co.za or follow her on Twitter: @deGrootS1