Pregnant but not married

Posted by ESC on May 31, 2009 at 16:17

In Reply to: Pregnant but not married posted by Victoria S Dennis on May 31, 2009 at 12:34:

: : I'm currently translating a play from Spanish into English. At one point the author uses an idiomatic phrase that refers to a young woman who is pregnant but not married, is there such a phrase or saying in English? I'd appreciate any suggestions!

: There are many phrases for this in English. Some are specifically regional, others have distinct overtones - jocular, slangy, censorious, and so on; so in order to decide which might be appropriate for your translation, a lot depends on the attitude and social standing of the character who is speaking. The setting of the play will also make a difference - is it contemporary or set in the past? For example, in England at any time between say 1900 and 1970, if you said of an unmarried girl that she "was in trouble", "had got herself into trouble", or that "her young man had got her into trouble", people would understand you to mean that she was pregnant. Now of course attitudes to unmarried pregnancy have changed so much that we no longer use this euphemism. (VSD)

Pasting my response in here:

When I was growing up in West Virginia in the 1960s, we didn't have terms for that because nobody discussed it. In fact, my mother got very upset with me because I used the word "pregnant" when explaining to a friend why my cousin's wife was staying with us. And my euphemism references are strangely silent on the subject. There are several that come to mind regarding the couple and the child. But I can't think of any specifically referring to the mother-to-be. Just that, in my region, they used to say an pregnant unmarried woman was "in trouble" or "got caught." Regards the couple, there was one that I have read in a phrase book: the couple forgot to say grace before they ate. Another: a Kentucky man was explaining why he married when he was 15 and his wife 13: "...we were running across a pasture field and she fell down. I fell down, too. We didn't get up quick enough." "Wolfpen Notebooks: A Record of Appalachian Life" by James Still (University Press of Kentucky, 1991), Page 64.

PS: A more modern one: single mom. Probably to update/replace the more judgmental "unwed mother." When my daughter was in kindergarten, the children were playing dress-up. She told me she dressed up as a "single mom." I was thinking, yikes.

• Pregnant but not married Joe 31/May/09