I feel like a defective typewriter
What we can learn from euphemisms about pregnancy
Well hello horny readers! I haven’t done a post about slang in a while, so I figured it’s time to explore all of the ways that people describe pregnancy. I’ll link to other “word play” posts below.
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Adult Sex Ed comedically challenges why we think what we think about sex. In case you’re new, I’m Dani Faith Leonard, a comedy writer, film producer, and performer. In 2018, I started a comedy show called Adult Sex Ed and launched this newsletter last year. Each week, I take a fun deep dive into a topic that I’ve been researching. Want to know more? Read the whole description on substack here.
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I remember watching Grease as a kid, probably at around 7 or 8 when I was cast in a summer camp production. I didn’t understand the scene when Rizzo informs her friend Marty that she’s pregnant because it’s basically a masterclass of euphemisms. First, Rizzo says that she feels like a defective typewriter because she skipped a period. In the scene that follows, her condition is referred to as P.G., a bun in the oven, knocked up, and a mistake.
The reason why Rizzo and her friends might not have used the actual word is that Grease is a period movie—it’s set in the 1950s, even though it was released in 1978. In the 1950s, the word pregnant was deemed too obscene for TV. On I Love Lucy, a pregnant Lucille Ball couldn’t actually say she was pregnant on CBS (even showing her pregnancy was a huge deal, but CBS eventually allowed it). The episode’s title was “Lucy Is Enceinte,” the french word for pregnant.
The earliest known use of the word pregnant is in the Middle English period (1150—1500). Since it’s been uncouth to use the actual word, both in society and on TV, there were many euphemisms that developed over time. The written language has been mostly contributed to by men throughout history. Just like in the other editions of the history of slang that I’ve written (links below), there are overarching themes that reveal society’s view of women, sex, and in this case, pregnancy.
Theme #1: euphemisms to reflect that no one could say the real thing because they weren’t allowed, or because pregnancy is an embarrassment.
Expecting, with child, in a family way, in a delicate condition, in the club
It’s a country club, I assume. These really common euphemisms conjure images of tight lipped wasps for me.
Many of the terms for sex involve destruction (bang, hammer, rail). In the first edition of the history of slang, I researched the words for vaginas over time. While the euphemisms for a penis through time have been some kind of weapon or useful tool, vaginas have often been infantilized, or compared to receptacles, homes, or holes. That’s reflected in these next two themes:
Theme #2: Pregnancy is an affliction, often given to the pregnant person by a man.
Knocked up, banged up, jacked up, stung by a serpent, poisoned, breeded up, up the pole (first used all the way back in Ulysses!)
Theme #3: Women are a receptacle, not a participant.
Bun in the oven, pea in the pod, bat in the cave, full of it, harboring a fugitive
Theme #4: Well, she’s fat now. Also, she’s done.
Big, belly bumping, blown up, eating for two, gonna pop, as big as a barrel, done, in pig, belly up, ruin’t, spoiled, out of circulation
Theme #5: Oops.
A mistake, in trouble, caught, in a fix
Overall, very few terms reflect growing a life, but many of them reflect the ending of one. The overarching theme is that pregnancy is something that happens to you, not something you participate in. This is important because it’s reflected in policy and politics, and the policing of pregnant people’s bodies.
The strangest euphemism I found was the rabbit died. There was an early pregnancy test where a woman’s urine was injected into a rabbit. The rabbit would be dissected and the ovaries examined for changes. It was thought that a positive test would cause the rabbit to die, but technically the rabbit died either way to be dissected. The term rabbit test was first recorded in 1949 and in the 1975 song “Sweet Emotion,” Steven Tyler sings "You're telling her things but your girlfriend lied / You can't catch me 'cause the rabbit done died."
Like most euphemisms, it always depends on the delivery. While some people may find it creepy, preggophilia is a rather common sexual fetish (also known as maiesiophilia or maieusophoria). I guess if an erotic insemination fantasy involved being filled up, it takes on a different tone. There are more romantic terms that invoke the actual process, like giving life and in bloom, but not every pregnancy feels like a total miracle. The actual word “pregnant” has French and Latin roots and means before birth, and now that we can actually say it, it’s usually the best way to go.
Want to see more terms? Check out Greens Dictionary of Slang.
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