Updated Language of Pregnancy

I calculate I have been pregnant for three years of my life (9x4=36/12=3). My maternal great-grandmother had 11 children, so she was pregnant for eight years and three months of her life (9x11=99/12=8.25). If I were an elephant with an 18-22 month pregnancy, that could be six years to seven years and four months (18x4=72/12=6; 22x4=88/12=7.33). In elephant pregnancy years, my great-grandmother would have been pregnant for 16 years and six months to 20 years and 5ish weeks (18x11=198/12=16.5; 22x11=242/12=20.16).

I am so glad I am not an elephant.

How many elephant years have you, your spouse, or your mother been pregnant?

Definitions of Pregnancy

During those three years of my pregnant life, I developed these definitions:

Pregnancy (1) noun /preagnensee/ nine months a man will never understand.

Pregnancy (2) noun /pregnansea/ nine months of the mother's body suppressing the immune system against a foreign object...the baby.

Morning sickness noun phrase /morneeng siknes/ that feeling in the pit of the mother's stomach, rising to the throat, out the mouth, and twirling in the head.

Ginger noun /jinjr/ the pretend spice that's supposed to ease morning sickness.

Sit-ups noun /situpss/ a dry heave exercise.

Nose noun /knoase/ the heightened sniffer that can tell a toddler's diaper is filthy from a room away or other people are sweaty.

Clear path noun phrase /kleer paeth/ all family members jump away when the preggo lady gags.

Saliva noun /selaive/ oral liquid with a temporarily increased production that helps counteract stomach acid and the nutrient-absorbing baby from rotting teeth.

1st pregnancy husband noun phrase /fearst pregnensea husbend/ held hair when mother retches and gets wife water after.

2nd & 3rd pregnancy husband noun phrase /seakund 'n thurd preagnansee husbend/ gets mother water after retching.

4th pregnancy husband noun phrase /forth pregnensi hesband/ stays where he is at and occasionally brings wife water after retching.

Toilet noun /toylut/ pregnant lady's best friend who she knows all its curves and the right trajectory to vomit in its bowl spill-free.

Chunky, spicy food noun phrase /chunkee spaisea fud/ salsa preggo person's worst enemy.

Bile noun /buyel/ the yellow color gall bladder-free expectant mothers see many mornings in the toilet bowl.

Tired adjective /taird/ a permanent state of being.

Bending verb /beandeeng/ expectant women could do it in the first trimester.

1st pillow noun phrase /fearst peelo/ to support a mother's tired head.

2nd pillow noun phrase /ceakund pilo/ to support the expanding abdomen when lying on one's side.

3rd pillow noun phrase /thrd pilow/ to put between sore legs so hips stay aligned.

4th pillow noun phrase /feaurth peelough/ optional pillow to support the back.

Baby kicks noun phrase /baybee kiks/ the sudden urge to pee.

Group Strep B noun phrase /groop streap bee/ antibiotics pumped into the vascular system until the patient is dead.

Sugar in urine noun phrase /shugr een yerin/ watch out for gestational diabetes.

Epidural noun /eapiderl/ a pain in the back to get just right.

Birth noun (berth) the painful event the mother dreads, but so looks forward to.

Post-partum body noun phrase /post peartem baudee/ bowling balls attached to the chest, tummy pouch, uterus shedding afterbirth, and bendable corpus.

What definitions would you add?

Final definition: gratitude

I have heard some women enjoy having a larger chest, feeling the baby move, or stronger hair and nails from prenatal vitamins. Some sadly just wish they could become or stay pregnant.

Personally, I complained about pregnancy but felt awed that my body was capable of it. My husband mourned when I complained. He would remind me that I enjoyed one aspect of pregnancy: I could feel the baby move. Yes. And my favorite part is feeling the baby move outside of me.

Ultimately, I love the miracle of life guided by the Creator's hand happening inside the womb. One microscopic egg and one microscopic sperm combine into a zygote, which doubles and doubles. At six weeks, the parents can hear the baby's heart beating. Around 12 weeks, the mother may feel fluttering. At sixteen weeks, the mother can feel kicks. A baby can survive outside the womb after 20 weeks. At 24 weeks, the baby responds to sound. Each week after the baby develops more of its senses and organs. And at 37-41 weeks, the baby can come out!

Do you consider pregnancy a miracle, a bother, or both?

Thanks to my sister-in-law who related the idea of engorged breasts feeling like bowling balls many years ago.

This post is a revision and combination of two posts from my personal blog.

The Word Whataboutism Caught My Eye

by Eileen Davis

This weekend I read many social media posts about “whataboutism.” The term caught my eye because it seemed so interesting. And it seemed an insult. I figured it meant people asking “what about that?” but I didn’t have much clue.

So here is what Merriam-Webster dictionary says about whataboutism:

Whataboutism gives a clue to its meaning in its name. It is not merely the changing of a subject (“What about the economy?”) to deflect away from an earlier subject as a political strategy; it’s essentially a reversal of accusation, arguing that an opponent is guilty of an offense just as egregious or worse than what the original party was accused of doing, however unconnected the offenses may be.

Upon first reading another explanation, I concluded this was a red herring in logic — or distracting one’s opponent from the issue at hand. But it’s a “you too” or tu qouque logical fallacy. The opponent says that you are guilty of the same crime instead of validating whether the first claim is true or not.

This circular logic is dizzying and confusing.

Now the term makes sense to me in the context of US politics. Some are accusing Antifa and Black Lives Matters protestors of similar conduct as the Stop the Steal protestors. Essentially, people are pointing their fingers at each other.

In my humble opinion, protests turn too easily to riots because bad actors generally appear at some point. Personally, I deliberate for hours until I post my opinion on social media.

Finally, I have P!NK’s song “What About Us?” stuck in my head.

Looking at the cartoon, what do you notice about the figures’ ears, mouths, and heads? What’s over their ears? Are they able to listen to one another?

The Change of Generic Man to Gender-Specific Man

I wrote about this topic previously but added more content here.

Representative Emanuel Cleaver II opened the 117th Congress session with a controversial end to his prayer: “amen and a woman.” Cleaver meant it as a pun to illustrate the current high number of female members of Congress. His intent seems good, though his timing may seem sacrilegious and inappropriate to some.

Others on social media aired their grievances about Cleaver’s pun. For example, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro tweeted:

“Amen” is a Biblical Hebrew word: אמן. It is a word simply meaning “may it be so.” It has nothing to do with the word “man” or “woman” because it is FROM HEBREW. This is some of the dumbest s*** I have ever seen in my life.

This incident illustrates the tension surrounding words and gender politics. Even if intent may be honorable on both sides of an issue, a war of words may still ensue over the definition narrowing and/or broadening of gendered terms.

What do you think about Cleaver's pun on amen?

The Faux Pas

I experienced similar tension during a college class over the Star Trek introduction. In the first few months of my marriage to a Trekkie, my husband and I watched the original Star Trek where I heard “To boldly go where no man has gone before” with every introduction.

During my Modern American Usage class the next semester, the professor asked for examples of sexist or inclusive language.

“Where no man has gone before,” I said.

Suddenly two or three people in the class objected: “No, it’s ‘where no one has gone before.’”

I cowered, but I knew I was right!

Well, I hadn’t watched Star Trek: Next Generation yet where the creators had changed the introduction to inclusive language. However, my example with theirs showed the evolution of inclusive language from the 60s to the 80s.

Has anyone ever called you out for sexist language? Have you ever called someone out for sexist language? How did the exchange go?

Generic Man

Over thousands of years, our language has narrowed generic human nouns and pronouns into gender-specific nouns and pronouns (or vice versa). Old English used wer to indicate an adult male, but speakers replaced wer with man. The meaning of man meant male or female until AD 1000. But man retained the sense of people for longer. The last original Star Trek introduction (6/23/1969) and Neil Armstrong’s declaration on the moon “One small step for man; one giant leap for mankind” (7/20/1969) illustrate this sense of people until 1969.

Other terms that use man for the sense people include mankind, manslaughter, manhandle, etc. Mankind has declined in usage over the past 200 years. Humankind seems to have replaced mankind in some instances since 1960. Using Google Books Ngram, mankind usage decreased in 1978 as humankind usage increased. Mankind has a slight dip — mostly in the 90s — but it returns to the same percentage in 2019. Interestingly enough, mankind increased in the new Millennium. Humankind doesn’t seem to have replaced mankind as of yet, and the term may never do so.

Screenshot of Ngram

Can you think of other terms with "man" that still retain the sense of people?

The Desire for Gender Neutral Terms Returns

Ironically, as gender-specific terms narrowed, some have a desire for gender-neutral terms again. This desire stems from various legal, diversity, and transgender movements. First, gender-neutral language often simplifies legal language. Second, some desire gender-neutral terms to reflect the gender spectrum. For these dual purposes, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has proposed to change gender-specific terms to gender-neutral terms in the Congress ethic rules. This proposal has again sparked controversy among politicians.

The issue of gender-neutral versus gender-specific terms encounters controversy because of potential discrimination based on sex, religion, or political persuasion.

How do you feel about the changes in the House Ethic Rules?

Look at a Person’s Intentions

The changes in meaning and terms have been an underlying issue in the culture wars for several decades. This tension will most likely continue. But as it continues, we need to look at people’s intentions behind their words. Like Cleaver and Shapiro, most of us have honorable intentions. Thus, we can draw on our honorable intentions, instead of our desires to be right or not offended, to reach compromises or to kindly disagree. Albeit not everyone will do this, but you and I can choose to do this.

How can we approach each other with a "heart at peace" when addressing conflicts over language usage?