NANNY<\/h2>\n
Sonic Nurse<\/strong><\/h3>\n
After the army of Important Academic Languages, and their Distinguished
And Layered Relationship With Modern English, we reach this.
N<\/em>anny <\/em>has no real relation to\u00a0Latin, Greek, French, Middle
or even Old English, but derives from ‘a child’s
corruption of the word
nurse<\/em>‘, tellingly akin to
mamma<\/em>.\u00a0Nurse<\/em>, it must be granted,
<\/em>has slightly more pedigree: it derives from the
twelfth-century Old French term\u00a0norrice<\/em>,
<\/em>via the Latin\u00a0nutricius <\/em>(=
<\/em>‘that suckles, nourishes’). It
<\/em>first appears in 1530 as a verb ‘to
suckle’, and as a noun fifty years later,
where it has the meaning we probably use most often:
‘one who takes care of the
sick’.<\/p>\n![\"Hattie](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.badreputation.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/mammy.jpg?resize=311%2C172\")
<\/a>Hattie McDaniel as Mammy,
in Gone WIth The Wind. Image from
http:\/\/www.gonemovies.com\/<\/p><\/div>\n
Nanny<\/em> is first cited as an independent
word meaning ‘a child’s
nurse-maid’ in 1795, whence it proves
itself as fluid as you would expect, also
encompassing a quasi-proper name,\u00a0Nana<\/em> (Cf. Katy
Nana<\/a> in
Mary Poppins<\/strong>, and the
Newfoundland dog in
Peter Pan<\/strong>). In 1830s America,
we meet another deviant form of the same
idea:\u00a0mammy,<\/em> a dialect corruption
of\u00a0mamma<\/em> referring to ‘a
black woman who looks after white
children’. In extended
form,\u00a0mammy <\/em>refers to\u00a0a racial
stereotype<\/a>: ‘the loud,
overweight and good natured black
woman’, epitomised (in proper
name form) in\u00a0Gone With The Wind<\/strong>, and
controversially brought to life in
an Oscar-winning
performance<\/a> by\u00a0Hattie
McDaniel<\/a> (above, right). And
it’s not all the Americans:
this phenomenon has certain
similarities to the British use of
native women as nursemaids in
colonial India,\u00a0ayah<\/em>s, so named in
reference to the Hindi word
meaning
‘nurse’.<\/p>\n
Dude Ranch Nurse<\/h3>\n
All this leads back to one
place: the whistleblowing
potential of an infant’s
cries<\/a>, in this instance
naming the truly maternal
figure in their formative
years.\u00a0But then, of
course, until the late
eighteenth century (the
nineteenth, in France), no
fashionable woman would even
consider nursing her own
child: on the
contrary,\u00a0wet nursing
<\/em>(sending your kid
out to be suckled by a
hired breast)\u00a0was so
common as to be automatic.
Newborns were generally
sent away for up to two
years to be
nourished<\/em>, at a
rate of\u00a0anything
from a few shillings a
week to between \u00a325
– 50 a
year.<\/p>\n
The reasons were as
varied as the price,
spanning the
apparently trivial
(social custom, and
the desire to return
to public life ASAP);
the medical (fears for
the mother’s
health after the
strain of lying in
sans
<\/em>twenty-first\u00a0century
advantages), and the
‘medical’
(the widespread
notion that sex with
a nursing woman
would damage her
milk and therefore
the child, and the
belief that
conception was
impossible during
this time anyway).
It also seems
possible that
rampant infant
mortality may have
contributed: parents
would send their
children away until
they had survived
their most dangerous
years, rather than
invest emotional
energy in a
little’un who
might well leave you
before their first
birthday.<\/p>\n
That said, the
enduring influence
of the nanny
qua<\/em>
mother-figure
lasted long into
the twentieth
century, albeit
mostly among the
mega-aristocracy:\u00a0The
King’s
Speech
<\/strong>(2011)\u00a0imagines\u00a0the
future George
VI to have
been closer to
his nannies
than his
family; one of
these,\u00a0Charlotte
Bill<\/a>, was
famously also
an effective
mother to his
autistic and
epileptic
younger
brother,
Johnny
(re-created in
the 2003 BBC
serial
The
Lost
Prince<\/a><\/strong>).<\/p>\n
Maggie’s
Farm<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"Louis](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.badreputation.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/467px-Louis_XIV_and_his_nurse.jpg?resize=280%2C359\")
<\/a>Louis
XIV of
France
painted
with his
wet-nurse,
by
Charles
Beaubrun
(c.1640)<\/p><\/div>\n
The
women
who
actually
did
all
this
nursing
were
inevitably
of a
lower
social
class
than
their
clients
\u2013
if not
a
different
race
\u2013
although
they
could
earn
good
money
(and
possibly
a nice
pension)
in the
process.
Here
we
tumble
into a
parallel
nanny
universe:
the
word
in its
more
formal
sense
originating
from
another\u00a0proper
name<\/a>.
<\/em>Through
a
bit
of
shuffling,
good
old\u00a0Ann<\/em>
became
first\u00a0Nan<\/em>
and
then\u00a0Nanny<\/em>,
in
which\u00a0incarnation,
around
1788,
the
word
came
to
simply
connote
femininity,
as
in\u00a0Nanny-goat
<\/em>(=
‘a
female
goat’,
on
which
see
also
‘Jenny
Wren’
and
‘jenny-ass’).
Like
Doll<\/em>,
Nan’s
trajectory
suggests
commonness,
generic
feminine
identity,
and
while
the
dictionary
is
specific
on
the
two
nannies<\/em>‘
separation,
its
stated
origin
in
an
infant’s
mouth
is
by
definition
uncertain,
language
development
fluid,
and
the
connections
between
milking
and
the
farmyard
in
need
of
little
exposition
\u2013
compare
the
nineteenth-century
term
baby
farmer<\/em>,
a
lower-class
wet
nurse
happy
to
let
her
charges
die
because
her
one-off
fee
encouraged
little
else.
The
term
was
always
pejorative,
and
synonymous
with
the
dangerous,
non-nurturing
female.<\/p>\n
In
contrast,
we
have
the
nannies
<\/em>who
stayed
with
one
family
for
generations
(like
the
mammy<\/em>
and
the
ayah
<\/em>abroad):
these
last
are
inevitably
conventionally
‘older’
than
their
baby-farming
colleagues,
and
presumably
played
a
more
extended
mothering
role.
It
is
these\u00a0strange
insider-outsiders
who
appear
in
literature
as
bawdy
and
decrepit
old
women,
inevitably
depicted
as
their
job
title
suggests:
firmly
on
the
side
of
the
children
they
raise,
to
the
extent
that
they
will
happily
aid
their
improper
sexual
dalliances.
It
is
thus
that
the
Nurse<\/em>
appears
in
Romeo
and
Juliet<\/strong>,
and
in
Keats’
The
Eve
of
St.
Agnes<\/strong>.
The
suspicion
inevitably
directed
at
these
figures
is
certainly
class-based:
wet
nursing’s
detractors
had
been
arguing
for
years
that
by
withholding
mothers’
milk
parents
risked
their
children
absorbing
working-class
mannerisms
\u2013
and
criminal
tendencies
\u2013
from
their
surrogate
teats.<\/p>\n
Na
na
na
na
na.<\/h3>\n
The
next
stop
for
the
nanny
<\/em>is
in
the
inter-war
years,
with
representatives
including
P.L.
Travers’
Mary
Poppins<\/strong>,
the
poems
<\/a>of
A.
A.
Milne,\u00a0and
Noel\u00a0Streatfeild<\/a>‘s
legion
of
sexless
‘cottage
loaf’
Nanas.
Streatfeild’s
children
are
almost
invariably
orphaned,
and
their
Nana-figure
keeps
them
nourished
through
‘nursery
ways’,
a
stubborn
lack
of
sentimentality,
and
a
feeling
of
permanence
sadly
lacking
in
the
increasingly
fragmented
world
of
war-torn
Britain.
A
similar
idea
is
repeated
in
the
1964
Disney
film
of
Travers’
novel,
which
makes
the
significant
decision
to\u00a0backdate
events
to
1910,
when
the
focus
is
on
‘moulding
the
breed’
for
future
colonial
greatness:<\/p>\n
Walt
Disney’s
Mary
Poppins
<\/strong>(1964)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In
so
doing,
Disney’s
film
situates
the
nanny
<\/em>as
part
of
‘tradition,
discipline
and
rules’,
nurturing
Britain’s
future
rather
than
its
children,
and
flying
in
the
face
of
its
very
etymology.<\/p>\n
Mr
Banks’
song
does,
however,
lead
us
to
the
final
stop
on
nanny’<\/em>s
childishly
simple
word-journey:
its
modern
incarnation
as
the
Dreaded
Nanny
State
<\/em>(first
appearing
some
time
between
the
fifties
and
sixties).
Always
an
opprobrious
term
(attempts
to\u00a0re-appropriate\u00a0it<\/a>
have
met
with
derision)
\u00a0critics
of
government
intervention
ranging
from
the
welfare
state
to
the
smoking
ban
hark
back
to
the
nanny
<\/em>to
point
up
‘mollycoddling’,
the
infantalisation
of
the
people
(who
are
presumably
thus
reduced
to
the
baby-talk
of
the
nursery)
returning
to
childhood
with
a
fussy
female
at
the
helm<\/a>.
Wash
your
face,
dearie.<\/p>\n
After the army of Important Academic Languages, and their Distinguished
And Layered Relationship With Modern English, we reach this.
N<\/em>anny <\/em>has no real relation to\u00a0Latin, Greek, French, Middle
or even Old English, but derives from ‘a child’s
corruption of the word
nurse<\/em>‘, tellingly akin to
mamma<\/em>.\u00a0Nurse<\/em>, it must be granted,
<\/em>has slightly more pedigree: it derives from the
twelfth-century Old French term\u00a0norrice<\/em>,
<\/em>via the Latin\u00a0nutricius <\/em>(=
<\/em>‘that suckles, nourishes’). It
<\/em>first appears in 1530 as a verb ‘to
suckle’, and as a noun fifty years later,
where it has the meaning we probably use most often:
‘one who takes care of the
sick’.<\/p>\n Hattie McDaniel as Mammy,
in Gone WIth The Wind. Image from
http:\/\/www.gonemovies.com\/<\/p><\/div>\n
Nanny<\/em> is first cited as an independent
word meaning ‘a child’s
nurse-maid’ in 1795, whence it proves
itself as fluid as you would expect, also
encompassing a quasi-proper name,\u00a0Nana<\/em> (Cf. Katy
Nana<\/a> in
Mary Poppins<\/strong>, and the
Newfoundland dog in
Peter Pan<\/strong>). In 1830s America,
we meet another deviant form of the same
idea:\u00a0mammy,<\/em> a dialect corruption
of\u00a0mamma<\/em> referring to ‘a
black woman who looks after white
children’. In extended
form,\u00a0mammy <\/em>refers to\u00a0a racial
stereotype<\/a>: ‘the loud,
overweight and good natured black
woman’, epitomised (in proper
name form) in\u00a0Gone With The Wind<\/strong>, and
controversially brought to life in
an Oscar-winning
performance<\/a> by\u00a0Hattie
McDaniel<\/a> (above, right). And
it’s not all the Americans:
this phenomenon has certain
similarities to the British use of
native women as nursemaids in
colonial India,\u00a0ayah<\/em>s, so named in
reference to the Hindi word
meaning
‘nurse’.<\/p>\n
All this leads back to one
place: the whistleblowing
potential of an infant’s
cries<\/a>, in this instance
naming the truly maternal
figure in their formative
years.\u00a0But then, of
course, until the late
eighteenth century (the
nineteenth, in France), no
fashionable woman would even
consider nursing her own
child: on the
contrary,\u00a0wet nursing
<\/em>(sending your kid
out to be suckled by a
hired breast)\u00a0was so
common as to be automatic.
Newborns were generally
sent away for up to two
years to be
nourished<\/em>, at a
rate of\u00a0anything
from a few shillings a
week to between \u00a325
– 50 a
year.<\/p>\n
The reasons were as
varied as the price,
spanning the
apparently trivial
(social custom, and
the desire to return
to public life ASAP);
the medical (fears for
the mother’s
health after the
strain of lying in
sans
<\/em>twenty-first\u00a0century
advantages), and the
‘medical’
(the widespread
notion that sex with
a nursing woman
would damage her
milk and therefore
the child, and the
belief that
conception was
impossible during
this time anyway).
It also seems
possible that
rampant infant
mortality may have
contributed: parents
would send their
children away until
they had survived
their most dangerous
years, rather than
invest emotional
energy in a
little’un who
might well leave you
before their first
birthday.<\/p>\n
That said, the
enduring influence
of the nanny
qua<\/em>
mother-figure
lasted long into
the twentieth
century, albeit
mostly among the
mega-aristocracy:\u00a0The
King’s
Speech
<\/strong>(2011)\u00a0imagines\u00a0the
future George
VI to have
been closer to
his nannies
than his
family; one of
these,\u00a0Charlotte
Bill<\/a>, was
famously also
an effective
mother to his
autistic and
epileptic
younger
brother,
Johnny
(re-created in
the 2003 BBC
serial
The
Lost
Prince<\/a><\/strong>).<\/p>\n
Maggie’s
Farm<\/strong><\/p>\n Louis
XIV of
France
painted
with his
wet-nurse,
by
Charles
Beaubrun
(c.1640)<\/p><\/div>\n
The
women
who
actually
did
all
this
nursing
were
inevitably
of a
lower
social
class
than
their
clients
\u2013
if not
a
different
race
\u2013
although
they
could
earn
good
money
(and
possibly
a nice
pension)
in the
process.
Here
we
tumble
into a
parallel
nanny
universe:
the
word
in its
more
formal
sense
originating
from
another\u00a0proper
name<\/a>.
<\/em>Through
a
bit
of
shuffling,
good
old\u00a0Ann<\/em>
became
first\u00a0Nan<\/em>
and
then\u00a0Nanny<\/em>,
in
which\u00a0incarnation,
around
1788,
the
word
came
to
simply
connote
femininity,
as
in\u00a0Nanny-goat
<\/em>(=
‘a
female
goat’,
on
which
see
also
‘Jenny
Wren’
and
‘jenny-ass’).
Like
Doll<\/em>,
Nan’s
trajectory
suggests
commonness,
generic
feminine
identity,
and
while
the
dictionary
is
specific
on
the
two
nannies<\/em>‘
separation,
its
stated
origin
in
an
infant’s
mouth
is
by
definition
uncertain,
language
development
fluid,
and
the
connections
between
milking
and
the
farmyard
in
need
of
little
exposition
\u2013
compare
the
nineteenth-century
term
baby
farmer<\/em>,
a
lower-class
wet
nurse
happy
to
let
her
charges
die
because
her
one-off
fee
encouraged
little
else.
The
term
was
always
pejorative,
and
synonymous
with
the
dangerous,
non-nurturing
female.<\/p>\n
In
contrast,
we
have
the
nannies
<\/em>who
stayed
with
one
family
for
generations
(like
the
mammy<\/em>
and
the
ayah
<\/em>abroad):
these
last
are
inevitably
conventionally
‘older’
than
their
baby-farming
colleagues,
and
presumably
played
a
more
extended
mothering
role.
It
is
these\u00a0strange
insider-outsiders
who
appear
in
literature
as
bawdy
and
decrepit
old
women,
inevitably
depicted
as
their
job
title
suggests:
firmly
on
the
side
of
the
children
they
raise,
to
the
extent
that
they
will
happily
aid
their
improper
sexual
dalliances.
It
is
thus
that
the
Nurse<\/em>
appears
in
Romeo
and
Juliet<\/strong>,
and
in
Keats’
The
Eve
of
St.
Agnes<\/strong>.
The
suspicion
inevitably
directed
at
these
figures
is
certainly
class-based:
wet
nursing’s
detractors
had
been
arguing
for
years
that
by
withholding
mothers’
milk
parents
risked
their
children
absorbing
working-class
mannerisms
\u2013
and
criminal
tendencies
\u2013
from
their
surrogate
teats.<\/p>\n
The
next
stop
for
the
nanny
<\/em>is
in
the
inter-war
years,
with
representatives
including
P.L.
Travers’
Mary
Poppins<\/strong>,
the
poems
<\/a>of
A.
A.
Milne,\u00a0and
Noel\u00a0Streatfeild<\/a>‘s
legion
of
sexless
‘cottage
loaf’
Nanas.
Streatfeild’s
children
are
almost
invariably
orphaned,
and
their
Nana-figure
keeps
them
nourished
through
‘nursery
ways’,
a
stubborn
lack
of
sentimentality,
and
a
feeling
of
permanence
sadly
lacking
in
the
increasingly
fragmented
world
of
war-torn
Britain.
A
similar
idea
is
repeated
in
the
1964
Disney
film
of
Travers’
novel,
which
makes
the
significant
decision
to\u00a0backdate
events
to
1910,
when
the
focus
is
on
‘moulding
the
breed’
for
future
colonial
greatness:<\/p>\n
Walt
Disney’s
Mary
Poppins
<\/strong>(1964)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In
so
doing,
Disney’s
film
situates
the
nanny
<\/em>as
part
of
‘tradition,
discipline
and
rules’,
nurturing
Britain’s
future
rather
than
its
children,
and
flying
in
the
face
of
its
very
etymology.<\/p>\n
Mr
Banks’
song
does,
however,
lead
us
to
the
final
stop
on
nanny’<\/em>s
childishly
simple
word-journey:
its
modern
incarnation
as
the
Dreaded
Nanny
State
<\/em>(first
appearing
some
time
between
the
fifties
and
sixties).
Always
an
opprobrious
term
(attempts
to\u00a0re-appropriate\u00a0it<\/a>
have
met
with
derision)
\u00a0critics
of
government
intervention
ranging
from
the
welfare
state
to
the
smoking
ban
hark
back
to
the
nanny
<\/em>to
point
up
‘mollycoddling’,
the
infantalisation
of
the
people
(who
are
presumably
thus
reduced
to
the
baby-talk
of
the
nursery)
returning
to
childhood
with
a
fussy
female
at
the
helm<\/a>.
Wash
your
face,
dearie.<\/p>\n![\"Hattie](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.badreputation.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/mammy.jpg\")
<\/a>
Dude Ranch Nurse<\/h3>\n
<\/a>
Na
na
na
na
na.<\/h3>\n