'Fall' Pregnant

[flip_flop]

How does one 'fall' pregnant.

Mrs Flop has been pregnant twice, and on neither occassion can I remember her having a problem with gravity!

Surely you become pregnant, or get pregnant, but how is it possible to fall pregnant or, in the past tense, 'I fell pregnant'.

I know I'm being petty, but it annoys me.

[jomifl]

You fall on your back, suddenly you are pregnant ...simples!

[tenrec]

You could fall on meat and two veg!

[sunny-dave]

Or indeed a random turkey baster ...

[jackthehat]

Did you not 'fall' in love with her?

[Zeuhl]

from 2005

http://www.theanswerb...s/Question151960.html

[HowardKennitby]

It has been around for quite a long time - from OED

b. To become pregnant.
1722 Session Bk. Penninghame (1933) I. 479 The said_Jannet_confessed that she fell with child and parted with it in May last.
1891 Farmer Slang II. 370/2 Fall (venery), to conceive.
1957 Young & Willmott in _C. H. Rolph' Human Sum vii. 129 The expression a woman uses when she is pregnant. She says she has _fallen'. _We had been married eight months before I fell.'

[EDDIE51]

This is one of the peculiarities of English that make it so hard for foreigners to understang what we are talking about.
I remember a story of a woman going to see a non British doctor and saying ''I think I have fallen again Doctor'' the Doctor though he should be checking for fractured bones.

[Davethedog]

jimifl - Coffee spat ove keyboard :-) Thank you

[Zeuhl]

And to fall ill

[rowanwitch]

and before people saw spermies under a microscope babies fell from heaven while people were having sex

[sunny-dave]

I thought a stork was involved somehow, or a gooseberry bush ... perhaps the stork falls off the gooseberry bush ?

[rowanwitch]

No I think willies are involved somewhere

[TheNovice]

rowanwitch - Somewhere?

[sallybb]

sunny dave if you fall in a gooseberry bush, you get lots of pricks.

[rowanwitch]

It's been a while...

[sunny-dave]

Oor Wullie, Your Wullie, A'body's Wullie .... and a ball ...


http://www.poundland....iginal/oor-wullie.jpg

[joggerjayne]

I agree.

I hate the expression "fall pregnant"

It sounds like falling ill. I don't know how it happened. I just fell pregnant one day.

Also ... I hope this doesn't sound too bad ... it seems to be teenagers who mostly use the phrase.

"Yeah, no, ya see, I just like, ya know, I fell pregnant."

[rowanwitch]

usually followed by but I was p155ed at the time and I don't know which one of the financial personnel dunnit...

[sunny-dave]

financial personnel

ah - a wunch of bankers ...

[rowanwitch]

sawrite get a bit more benny wohnI