Paternity in the good old days

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:20 PM -0400 7/23/10, Wilson Gray wrote:
>"The only father" lacks the color of "the baby daddy."
>
>-Wilson

Yeah; I suppose it's short for something like "the only viable father
candidate".

LH

>
>On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>>  Subject:      Paternity in the good old days
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  In 1686, a Colony of Plymouth court charged a man "to be the only
>>  father of the said [bastard] child."  In another case, the mother
>>  claimed that a particular male was "the only father".
>>
>>  Joel
>>
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>>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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>
>
>
>--
>-Wilson
>---
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"--a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-Mark Twain
>
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