Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> says
> I just spoke to a friend who's newly pregnant, and I heard myself
> using the phrase "with child." Seems an interesting locution. Unknown
...
> humans. Is a horse "with foal"? a goat "with kid?" or a fish "with sprat"?
Having grown up on a farm I remember cows being "in calf".
I don't remember whether ewes were "in lamb" or "with lamb" though.
I suspect "with child" is a euphemism, left over from the days,
not so long ago, when "pregnant" was considered vulgar.
One can also be "Heavy with child", which from experience
is a pretty good description of how it feels both before
the birth and for the next several years.
Janet
PS Best wishes to your friend, Mark, and here's a link for her:
http://www.breastfeeding.asn.au
Loads of useful information for new and not-so-new parents.
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Janet Jackson <[log in to unmask]>
Poems at Proximity:
http://www.arach.net.au/~huxtable/janet/proximity.html
"When one acts in accord with the time, the yang energy
is expansive, like thunder going out of the earth and
rising forcefully into the sky, startling an area of a
hundred miles with its rumble, so that all demons flee.
The life-giving potential continues increasing, and the
earth is always covered with yellow sprouts, the world
blooms with golden flowers. Wherever one may walk,
everywhere is the Tao. No happiness is more delightful
than this." Liu I-ming, trans. Thomas Cleary
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