Nurse-Hound, Large-Spotted Dogfish, Huss

The English names nurse-hound and huss had always puzzled me until Dawn and Douglas Nelson, who live near Folkestone in Kent, suggested on the basis of their knowledge of local fishermen that the name nurse-hound (used because this large dogfish reputedly ‘nannies’ its smaller relations) had been shortened to nurse, which turned into ‘nuss’; and that ‘a nuss’ then became ‘an uss’; and that what was thought to be a missing aspirate was then added to ‘uss’ and produced ‘huss’. Very plausible.