Random memory: Good hope

[pne]

I remember how Stella was pregnant with Amy, and we were ready to announce it to the public (we kept it to ourselves for the first few weeks).

I came into work and my co-worker Meike was there. She asked how Stella was and I replied, "Gut; sie ist guter Hoffnung." Which literally means, "she is of good hope", but Meike twigged at once and replied, "Oh, that's nice! When's it due?" ("Oh, schön! Wann ist es soweit?"). Heh—fixed euphemisms.

Incidentally, when I looked up "guter Hoffnung" on Leo just now, it was marked "veraltend" (obsolescent). And translated as "to be expecting; to be in the family way". The latter phrase made me think of my father, who would often make fun of that phrase by saying, "she's in everyone's way", so I don't think I could ever say it with a straight face because I would instantly have the association in my mind!

What euphemisms do you use for being pregnant? Or do you always come straight out and say "I'm/my wife/my friend is pregnant"?

(One I find cute is "to have a bun in the oven".)

Comments

[yvi]

Yeah, "einen Braten in der Röhre haben". Thought that can be made to sound mean very easily.

[ailbhe]

I say "pregnant," because here the euphemisms are all tied in together with ideas about sexual shame.

[ailbhe]

Oh, the other one is "due." "Did you know Jane is due at the end of February?" or similar.

[pthalo]

in Hungarian we say "terhes", but it comes from "teher" which means a burden. So "she is burdened", but because of that most people say "babát vár" (she's waiting for a baby) because that shows that she's happy about the pregnancy and is waiting expectantly for its arrival. Or we say she's a "kismama" (little mother).

[pne]

"babát vár" (she's waiting for a baby)

English and German have that, too: "She's expecting a baby"; "Sie erwartet ein Baby".

The German is even morphologically "to wait for" ("warten" = "wait", and the "er-" here means that you the thing waited for doesn't need a preposition "for" but becomes the direct object of the verb), but it's usually translated "to expect".