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English is sometimes confusing. For instance, do we say 'Goat milk' or 'Goats' milk'? Or 'Cow meat' or 'Cows' meat'?

Haroon Parsa
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  • Look at https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/214481/when-to-use-s-before-noun?rq=1 This might be the same question. – James K Oct 23 '23 at 06:58
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    In your particlular case "goat milk", "goats milk", "goat's milk and "goats' milk" can all be seen in examples on the internet, but "cow meat" is always called "beef". – James K Oct 23 '23 at 06:59
  • @JamesK Where did you find "goats milk"? Every instance I found was a typo where the correct product name was either "goat milk" or "goat's milk". I also couldn't make Google give me any hits for "goats' milk". How did you manage that? – gotube Oct 23 '23 at 07:33
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    @gotube - maybe it's a regional thing? I'm UK based, and in 5 secs found this St Helen's Fresh Skimmed Goats Milk 1 Litre £2.15 (Tesco.com). It's in a groceries category called 'Goats Milk'. Likewise Asda, Sainsbury's, Waitrose and Morrisons (all big UK supermarkets). Lidl has no milk but does stock goat cheese and The Independent seems inclined to hedge its bets, showing variously goat's milk, goat milk and goat-milk. One story had goat milk in the headline but goat's milk in the story underneath. – Michael Harvey Oct 23 '23 at 09:49
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    @gotube - I found Fresh Whole Goats' Milk - Delamere Dairy - Goats' milk is a naturally nutritious alternative to cows' milk, with similar levels of calcium, vitamins and minerals. Use it just as you would use cows' milk [Knutsford, Cheshire, UK]. – Michael Harvey Oct 23 '23 at 10:16
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    A grammatical "rule" like "a noun can be used as an attributive modifier of another noun" would yield "cow milk" and "goat milk" which are grammatical and intelligible but not idiomatic in spoken English, though you might see them used in headlines where certain "sacrifices" are made to conserve space. – TimR on some device Oct 23 '23 at 11:13
  • @TimR - when I was a small child, my father used to facetiously refer to milk as 'cow juice'. – Michael Harvey Oct 23 '23 at 15:14
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    "Get quality Goats Milk at Tesco." ... "Powdered goats milk is produced by evaporating and spray drying goats milk."... "Take a look at our Goats Milk Soap. " ... "Somerset Cheese Co produce several cheeses using goats milk. Including a fresh Caerphilly," ... "Cows milk is meant for calves, goats milk is meant for kids," All from professionally produced websites (not youtube comments etc) – James K Oct 23 '23 at 21:02
  • cow milk and goat milk are not idiomatic? Hmm. That depends. In any case, in BrE, they are esses where AmE does not always: the drugs war and the drug war. – Lambie Oct 25 '23 at 20:42

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Meat is referred to as a compound noun without a plural or possessive - eg chicken leg, turkey breast etc. We tend not to say things like "pig meat" because we have names for the specific cuts from certain animals, but if we did, that's how we'd say it.

This is standard for a compound noun. We say car door, not "car's door" or "cars door". 'Meat' is dead flesh - it can't really be said to belong to the animal anymore, so the possessive you asked about doesn't seem logical, and most identifiable cuts of meat only come from one animal, so the plural wouldn't be right, either.

Milk is referred to using the plural - eg cows milk, goats milk etc. You can't really say for certain how many cows contributed to the milk in the bottle you bought from the supermarket.

Astralbee
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It depends exactly what you mean. The apostrophe + s signifies ownership, so if you say "the goat's milk" you are referring to milk which came from the goat, "cow's meat" is the meat which came from the cow. This is more common for those who live on a small farm and are referring to milk / meat that came from specific animals.

Without the apostrophe + s, the first noun specifies the type of object. "Goat milk" means milk that came from one or more non-specific goats; "cow meat" is meat that comes from a non specific cow.

Perhaps it is technically correct to say "the milk of a goat", but it is more common to say "goat milk".

We have different words for different meats, so we would use "beef" instead of "cow meat", but no individual words for milk, so we use "goat milk".

SomeGuy69
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