Just to comment on one of your points, Maureen, I myself make the point of
using the word "milk" for milk produced by women, and I specify when milk
is from other sources, e.g. cows, ewes, factories. The exception is when
I'm writing about the dairy industry, in which case, while I make it clear
that the milk concerned is from cows, I thereafter refer to it as "milk"
because the context is clear.

Because society thinks "milk" means the fluid from the mammary glands of
cows, some years ago parents would sometimes ask me when their babies could
start on "milk". Even when these babies were exclusively breastfed, it
didn't enter their parents' consciousness that the mother's milk was milk -
as it didn't come out of a cow or a can. (In recent years, I haven't been
asked this question.)

Different authors will navigate these issues in different ways till a
consensus is eventually reached. Discussions such as this get people
thinking about what terms we use, and why, and whether we could change them.

Virginia

Dr Virginia Thorley, OAM, PhD, IBCLC, FILCA
Ipswich, Queensland, Australia

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