One may be able to show,
perhaps, that in the case of other synonyms also a hunt for a term that
shall save the face of prudery may be more than justified by the
recovery of one which has a richer content. Terms are really very good
servants, if they are good terms and we retain our mastery of them. Let
any one without any previous practice start to write or speak on "human
reproduction," and on "human parenthood, physical and psychical," and he
will find that, though naming often saves a lot of thinking, as George
Meredith said, wise naming may be of great service to thought.
In these matters there is to be faced the fact of pregnancy. Here,
again, is a good word, as every one knows who has felt its force or that
of the corresponding adjective when judiciously used in the
metaphorical sense. The present writer's rule, when speaking, is to use
these terms only in their metaphorical sense, and to employ another term
for the literal sense. I should be personally indebted to any reader who
can inform me as to the first employment of the admirable phrase, "the
expectant mother." The name of its inventor should be remembered. In any
audience whatever--perhaps almost including an audience of children, but
certainly in any adult audience, whether mixed or not, medical or
fashionable, serious or sham serious--it is possible to speak with
perfect freedom on many aspects of pregnancy, as for instance the use of
alcohol, exposure to lead poisoning, the due protection at such a
period, by simply using the phrase "the expectant mother," with all its
pregnancy of beautiful suggestion.
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