Jabberwocky: Honey, I'm . . . pregcellent.
Nine months' worth of creative ways to say "pregnant."
by Mark Peters
May 29, 2007
to sprain one's ankle
An ankle full of pain and a belly full of baby: there's a little logic
and a lot of deception behind this association. The OED provides only two examples
of this meaning from 1785 and 1940, and the term means getting seduced/losing
the V-card as well. This seems to have the same uninformative intent as "I
have to see a man about a horse," an old chestnut that conceals visits
to bars, bathrooms and other unspeakable destinations.
an interesting condition
Pregnancy has been not-so-descriptively described as a "delicate condition," "certain
condition," "particular condition" and "interesting
condition." "Interesting" can mean pregnant in a few different
ways: birth has been called an "interesting event" and someone pregnant
is "beginning to be interesting." So if you want to make your life
more interesting . . . now your path is clear.
in pod
Pods aren't just for pod people. "In pod" has the same meaning
and form as "with child," and it's been out there since 1890.
This works metaphorically too, as a 1935 writer If you want to make your life more interesting . . . now your path is clear.could say, "I am in pod
again and am pupping a novel."
up the duff
Plenty of preg-tastic idioms take the form of the familiar "up the creek"—"up
the duff" and "up the pole" have meant pregnant in Australian
and Irish English since 1941 and 1922 respectively. "Up the stick" and "up
the spout" mean the same thing, and this 1961 citation gives a good sense
of the slangy flavor of this fertile family of expressions: "A lot of crooked
Popes . . . putting duchesses and nuns up the pole, and having Italy littered
with their bastards."
©2007 Nerve Media
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