On 13 Aug 2003 at 15:17, Magda Sachs wrote:

> although, really, when you think about it, wet nursing assumes that
> you need to modify 'nursing' because there is also dry nursing (and
> yes that is what it was called) -- so there must have been a term or
> way of refering to the practice before wet nursing.... wonder what, or
> if this is really before modern English evolved.

I didn't really understand the above, so I did a google search on wet
nursing and dry nursing and found documents which explain wet- and
dry-nursing. Dry-nursing was mixing for instance flour and water into
something to feed the baby.
I found this link very interesting: http://www.m-w.com/cgi-
bin/dictionary?va=dry-nursing ; it gives the following explanation:

Main Entry: dry-nurse
Function: transitive verb
Date: 1581
1 : to act as dry nurse to
2 : to give unnecessary supervision to

Main Entry: wet-nurse
Function: transitive verb
Date: 1784
1 : to act as wet nurse to
2 : to give constant and often excessive care to





--
Heleen Hayes
http://www.xs4all.nl/~hhayes

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