Crying Over Spilled Milk
It’s been a while since my last idiom article, so I thought I’d best pick up the pace. This is another one that’s still used, even by folks who don’t drink milk. I’ll see if I can give a little history on it!
The meaning of this idiom is to say that what has been done can’t be changed, so there is no use in worrying about the situation — you have to go forward and not dwell on the error or unfortunate event.
According to Grammarist, this saying has been in use for centuries, going back to the 1600s. It appears to be a reworking of the phrase, “no weeping for shed milk.” It appeared in a book called Paramoigraphy (Proverbs) by James Howell in 1659.
Its use continued through the years, also appearing in Hannah Maria Jones’ book titled Katharine Bereford (The shade and sunshine of woman’s life) in 1852. This romance novel was available on Amazon (and on other sites) at the time this article was published.
The current version of the idiom appeared in a short story published in a literary magazine (Once a Week)in 1872.
I haven’t been able to find any reference as to why milk was chosen, but it isn’t difficult to imagine milk being a valuable and recognizable commodity in what was, at the time, an agrarian society. Losing a bucket of…
