edmondjanet
Member
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2011
- Member Type
- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- Malayalam
- Home Country
- India
- Current Location
- India
They are milk maid. or
They are milk maids.
They are milk maids.
Sir, we have been taught plural also "milkmaid"
Sir, we have been taught plural also "milkmaid"
Now I could understand what is the plural.
If that's your definition of milkmaid, then it could be difficult to find one. :-DDoes any country actually have "milk maids" any longer? I picture rosy-cheeked lasses running down the mountain, their hair in braids, to the happy cows or goats awaiting them.
If that's your definition of milkmaid, then it could be difficult to find one. :-D
But girls do milk cows here in Poland and everywhere, I guess, where milking cows hasn't become a fully automated process. There are many families here who have two or three cows of their own and have to milk them themselves.
I understand, but the question whether there are milkmaids in different countries creates the problem of translating the word. We don't call a girl who milks cows "a milkmaid" , we call her "mleczarka". And the word might have different connotations in Polish. I just assumed the most tangible definition of the English word.
I read an entertaining book a while back set on a dairy farm where girls who were "in trouble" (pregnant without benefit of partners) came to be dairy maids, and they sang songs from the Sound of Music to the cows while they took care of them, until it was time for them to have their babies. The milk was then made into cheese, widely coveted for its incredible taste.
Ah - the title of the book was Blessed Are the Cheesemakers. How can you not love a title based on a Monty Python sketch. It was quirky and not great, but had some lasting images.