"knock up" --usage

[Laurence Horn]

At 5:29 PM -0700 9/19/05, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Just within the last two nights I heard Peter Bagdonovich on Turner
>Classic Movies mention very casually that some celebrated actress of
>the forties or fifties had done something or other (obviously I
>wasn't paying much attention) while she was "knocked up."
>
>I thought this was pretty crude for a classy cinematic discussion in
>prime time (even on cable), but evidently neither P.B. nor the TCM
>people shared my puritanical response.
>
>After all, it's just "knocked" + "up."  Where's the dirt ?  (Goak.)
>
>JL

Speaking of which, it might be useful to note that HDAS glosses
_knock up_ as 'to make pregnant, now usu. out of wedlock', and refers
to the phrase as "Euphemistic in early use, but now often considered
vulgar."  (The OED, which also records some 19th cent. uses, has it
simply as Slang and 'orig. U.S.')  Perhaps the church picnic guy was
just very very old.  In any case, I don't see that now or then
there's anything more than a default expectation along the lines of
unmarried/unplanned/unwanted, as opposed to that being part of the
lexical content, although arguably the uses of "knock(ed) up" with
reference to "legitimate" and/or wanted pregnancies may involve an
aspect of irony.

Larry

>
>Lal Zimman <zimman at SFSU.EDU> wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: Lal Zimman
>Subject: Re: "knock up" --usage
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>I definitely agree with you here, Fritz. To me, "knocked up" implies
>that the pregnancy was unwanted (or at the very least unplanned) and
>that the expectant mother is probably not married to the person who
>impregnated her. Definitely not the sort of thing to be tossed around
>at a church picnic.
>
>-Lal
>
>On Sep 19, 2005, at 1:26 PM, FRITZ JUENGLING wrote:
>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  Sender: American Dialect Society
>>  Poster: FRITZ JUENGLING
>>  Subject: Re: "knock up" --usage
>>  ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>  ---------
>>
>>  Recently I was at a church picnic. I was standing around with my
>>  wife and several other people chatting about the usual stuff. One
>>  of the women, about 30 years old, in the group was pregnant. A
>>  man, about 50, came and joined the group and the first thing he
>>  said was, speaking to the pregnant lady "Well, I see you got
>>  knocked up!" He thought he was quite (in the American sense of the
>>  word) funny. I thought that remark was extremely rude and
>>  inapropriate. My question, am I just a prude or was this really
>>  just the remark of a jerk?
>>  Would appreciate any comments.
>>  thanks,
>>  Fritz
>>
>>
>
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