People who use the term "fall pregnant"?

Question

would you mind telling me where you are from? I live in the Midwest U.S. and have never heard the phrase "fall pregnant" until I joined Yahoo. Thanks!

Answer 1

The Oxford English Dictionary gives an isolated usage in 1722, to describe the predicament of some foolish girl. It then emerges at the end of the 19th century - the golden age of euphemism - to reflect the misfortunes that, in an age before contraception, sometimes occurred to pretty under-housemaids who had attracted too much attention from the Young Master. In that context, everybody understood what it meant: "She was poor, but she was honest,/Victim of the squire's whim," and so on. The outcome was not to be discussed in polite society, and probably not that widely even in impolite. Once the inevitable had been confronted, arrangements were made, and much was brushed under the carpet. "Fall" itself suggested that the girl concerned may not have been entirely in control of her destiny; and its Miltonic resonances also supplied a suitably moral commentary for the act.

The meaning of the term, however, has altered greatly since the advent of the welfare state. Girls or women now "fall pregnant" in much the same way that any of us "falls" ill. Unlike in the past, there is no badge of shame. Indeed, in its apparently blithe statement of fact, there is the purpose of distancing the faller as far as possible from shame, or indeed from the act of conception, as possible. There is an attempt to create a casual impression of randomness, or of an act of God. Just as one might be sitting on a train, or in the audience at a cinema, or queueing up in a shop, and be visited by the germs for a common cold or flu, so one might just as accidentally be visited by pregnancy.

I suspect this change of usage has been largely customer-led. The welfare state has encouraged some towards fecklessness and irresponsibility. Their only duty, as they see it, is to live off the efforts of others. How better to slough off responsibility for one's own reproductive activities than by announcing to the world, when one is expecting a baby, that one has "fallen pregnant"? In that phrase there is no suggestion of any deliberate act: just, in the manner of the lightning strike, an entirely unpredicted and unavoidable consequence.

Those in the peer group of people who trot out this phrase usually connive in it, which is hardly surprising. However, so, too, do those "professionals" who must assist them through life after the fall. Searching the internet in my quest to find the origins of the term, I soon found various websites written by cheesy-looking doctors, agony aunts and other supernumerary psychiatric social workers all using the term with abandon. One, which especially cheered me up, tried to answer an inquiry from a young woman which began: "My fiancé and I are trying to fall pregnant."

Answer 2

Same here, I am from the south and have never heard it either. It is very polite but when I hear it, I think "Oops! I tripped and now I am pregnant!". It is a cute saying though.

Answer 3

hahaha i kinda always thought there was something funny-sounding about that term. "fell pregnant" to me, it just sounds like "fell ill". "her life was going well, and then she fell pregnant" that phrase could be seen as positive as the pregnancy has enhanced her life, but it makes it sound more negative to me. i think it sounds negative becuse the word "fall" we associate with going downwards. while we're on the topic, another one that bugs me is when people ask "how far gone are you?" when they are asking how far along in your pregnancy you are. it makes it sound like we're gone off without hope. haha hope this helps!

Answer 4

I am from the Northeast and I have never heard of that phrase either!

Answer 5

Hey most the people on here don't know how you get Pregnant... I think the terminology of someone who actually knows shes PG and how she got that way is cool -lol

Answer 6

the South
East coast

Answer 7

never heard of it either but id also like to know

Answer 8

me neither...I wondered the same thing...its very polite though

Answer 9

Hey how about this answer... I don't know... Helpful huh?

Answer 10

i heard it in australia.