"skim" versus "skimmed" milk: Some findings

Question

I've found further evidence to support my hypothesis that "skim milk" and "skim-milk" are older forms than "skimmed milk". These data (while hardly conclusive) also tentatively support two related hypotheses:
a) that the two forms have separate
etymologies, the "skim" version being derived from the noun "skim", and the "skimmed" version being
derived from the (later) verb "to skim".
b) that the earlier sense of "skimming" had "cream" rather than "milk" as its direct object.
Any further evidence, pro or con, is welcome.
The following are representative:
O! I could divide myself and go to buffets, for moving such a dish of skim milk with so honourable an action. Shakespeare: Act II. Scene III. The First Part of King Henry the Fourth. (1914 Oxford ED.)
O, I am as bad as yourself, said I. There is no skim milk in Francis Burke. But which is it to be? Fight or make friends? The Masters Wanderings. Stevenson, Robert Louis. 1889.

Things are seldom what they seem,
Skim milk masquerades as cream.
William S. Gilbert (1836-1911) H.M.S. Pinafore
It is not well for a man to pray, cream; and live skim milk. Henry Ward Beecher (1813-87)
...black mustache, superficial animation, and perhaps good lungs, but no more depth than skim-milk. But reading folks probably get their information of those Bible areas...
Whitman, Walt. The Bible as Poetry. November Boughs. (1892)

Cheese is made from skim milk, milk plus cream, or cream. Cheese is kept for a longer or shorter...
Farmer, Fannie Merritt. 1918.
The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book.
It is easier to find references, in British and American literature of past ages, to skimming cream than to skimming milk. The notion that it was originally
thought to be the cream rather than the milk that
is skimmed, leaving behind the skim (not skimmed) milk, might explain why the form "skimmed milk" seems to have appeared later (and skim milk was also sometimes known as "blue milk"). It is not impossible to find early references to skimming milk (rather than cream) there is one in Shakespeare but they seem to have been the exception early on and to have become commoner, lending support to the idea that "skimming" in the sense of "removing" may have been earlier than "skimming" in the sense of "removing something from".
Here are early examples of "skimming" as something that happens to the cream rather than the milk:
...here is cream, Deepening to richness from a snowy gleam; Sweeter than that nurse Amalthea skimm'd For the boy Jupiter Endymion: Book II. Keats, John. 1884. Poetical Works

Cultivated men and women who do not skim the cream of life, and are attached to the duties, yet escape the harder blows, make acute and balanced observers.
George Meredith (1828-1909)
He liked those literary cooks
Who skim the cream of others' books...
Hannah More (British author, b1745)
Most references to skimming milk (rather than cream) occur in the modern age, though the exception in
Shakespeare (who preferred "skim milk" however),
which I cited in a previous post, is interesting. Is it possible that he was the first influential writer to transfer the meaning of "skim" from "removing" to
"removing (something) from" ? It's just the sort of mischief he was prone to get up to.

Michael West
Melbourne, Australia

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]I've found further evidence to support my hypothesis that "skim milk" and "skim-milk" are older forms than "skimmed milk". These ... sense of "skimming" had "cream" rather than "milk" as its direct object. Any further evidence, pro or con, is welcome.[/nq]
Any thoughts on pronunciation? If your hypotheses are correct (and they look pretty convincing to me see my post in the other thread), and "skim-milk" is the milk left over after the removal of the skim (n.), then wouldn't it ve reasonable to expect "skim-milk" to have been pronounced as the sort-of-related-if-you-think-about-it "dishwater", "****-heap" or "coffee grounds" still are with the stress on the first syllable (in this case "skim"), rather than with equal stress (as in, usually, "skimmed milk")?

Ross Howard

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Any thoughts on pronunciation? If your hypotheses are correct (and they look pretty convincing to me see my post ... the stress on the first syllable (in this case "skim"), rather than with equal stress (as in, usually, "skimmed milk")?[/nq]
My thoughts exactly. There was new milk, buttermilk, and skim-milk, with the first syllable in each case getting the stress.

Michael West
Melbourne, Australia

Usenet · Answer

Great thread: what I like best about AUE. I'm aware that I haven't snipped very well in what follows: apologies. As I said in the older thread, I'm attracted to the idea, but the evidence doesn't seem to be complete, so here are some comments for what they're worth.
[nq:1]I've found further evidence to support my hypothesis that "skim milk" and "skim-milk" are older forms than "skimmed milk". These ... "skim" version being derived from the noun "skim", and the "skimmed" version being derived from the (later) verb "to skim".[/nq]
But this formation of compounds by infinitive+noun is found in all periods, isn't it? I'm not quite sure that it's now productive, but it's normal: 'melt-water', 'lock-jaw'.
OED puts the verb earlier by a century: 1420 (see below), though that doesn't constitute final proof. If we take noun 'skim' as precisely equivalent to some uses of 'scum', we can go to 1440, I suppose.
[nq:1]b) that the earlier sense of "skimming" had "cream" rather than "milk" as its direct object.[/nq]
We need much earlier examples for (b) than Keats. I can offer 1651, from Hobbes, no less: "Cream, which they skim from the milk". Dryden, 1697, refers to skimming overflowing dregs from boiling must, not milk.
Ben Jonson, 1599, "He speaks all cream, skimmed, and more affected than a dozen of waiting-women" looks like one for your case.
1655 "...I was fain to skim it (water) up with a platter" is in yourfavour.
It's clearly wrong to concentrate too much on milk and cream, as the word had a general application from the start.
[nq:1]Any further evidence, pro or con, is welcome. The following are representative: O! I could divide myself and go to ... so honourable an action. Shakespeare: Act II. Scene III. The First Part of King Henry the Fourth. (1914 Oxford ED.)[/nq]
I think, with OED1, that this (1596) is probably the true text; but we must note that the Folio of 1603 has "skim'd milk". This emendation or mistake shows that the expression 'skimmed milk' did exist at the time. Which at the very least doesn't contradict the speculation that Shakespeare invented the term 'skim milk'; OED's next 'skimmed milk' is from 1722, which is only ten years later than its next 'skim-milk', from 1712.
[nq:1]It is easier to find references, in British and American literature of past ages, to skimming cream than to skimming milk.[/nq]
Are you confident of this?
[nq:1]The notion that it was originally thought to be the cream rather than the milk that is skimmed, leaving behind ... that "skimming" in the sense of "removing" may have been earlier than "skimming" in the sense of "removing something from".[/nq]
I can't see that, since 'skim' is closely related to 'scum', and was applied beyond liquids quite early on. There's no doubt that 'skim' comfortably means 'remove' where what is removed is in the nature of a floating fraction of the material; but we don't seem to have that from earlier than 1655.
1666, Dryden again, yields the reverse meaning used by modern plasterers: putting a surface layer on . Does this back-handedly support your proposal, as the verb clearly refers to the surface, not the substrate?
[nq:1]Here are early examples of "skimming" as something that happens to the cream rather than the milk:[/nq]
These don't seem early enough to make the case (see other examples above).
[nq:1]Most references to skimming milk (rather than cream) occur in the modern age, though the exception in Shakespeare (who preferred ... from "removing" to "removing (something) from" ? It's just the sort of mischief he was prone to get up to.[/nq]
OED has a reference to frying "In buttur wele skymmet" from 1420, two other 'remove (something) from' uses from the 15C, and three from the 16C, including the Midsummer Night's Dream "..he that...skim milk" one from Shakespeare.
I think we need to look up a lot more evidence.
Mike.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]The following are representative: O! I could divide myself and ... First Part of King Henry the Fourth. (1914 Oxford ED.)[/nq]
[nq:1] I think, with OED1, that this (1596) is probably the true text; but we must note that the Folio ... milk'; OED's next 'skimmed milk' is from 1722, which is only ten years later than its next 'skim-milk', from 1712.[/nq]
Well done. That weakens my argument considerably.
I'm going to have to shell out for the OED.
[nq:2]It is easier to find references, in British and American literature of past ages, to skimming cream than to skimming milk.[/nq]
[nq:1]Are you confident of this?[/nq]
Well, it was easier for me to find them, using
various online sources. This is by no means
scholarship.
[nq:2]The notion that it was originally thought to be the ... earlier than "skimming" in the sense of "removing something from".[/nq]
[nq:1]I can't see that, since 'skim' is closely related to 'scum', and was applied beyond liquids quite early on. There's ... the nature of a floating fraction of the material; but we don't seem to have that from earlier than 1655.[/nq]
I'm taking the tack that the verb "skim" was a verbing of the noun "skim/skum" (in whatever form it existed), and that it meant "to remove." I admit it could just as logically have been verbed to mean "remove something from (something)."
[nq:1]OED has a reference to frying "In buttur wele skymmet" from 1420, two other 'remove (something) from' uses from the 15C, and three from the 16C, including the Midsummer Night's Dream "..he that...skim milk" one from Shakespeare.[/nq]
The Shakespeare is the exception; he has Puck skimming the milk. To some extent, it's required by the construction of the verse he can't have the poor wench churning the "cream" if it isn't there. But that's the one I was pointing to as a possible example of WS's twisting language a bit for good effect. Most other early uses of skim take "cream" (or, as in your cite, "butter") as the direct object.
I appreciate the feedback, Mike. My sample was too narrow.

Michael West
Melbourne, Australia

"skim" versus "skimmed" milk: Some findings

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