[lit-ideas] "Expectant Father" (in the OED)
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 18:14:46 EDT
In a message dated 9/22/2004 1:16:50 PM Eastern Standard Time, pas@xxxxxxxx
writes:
no
one EVER says "expectant father", so it doesn't even come into it.
---
Well, as I pointed out early, the OED does credit 'expectant father'. What
must be at play is a retro-transferred implicature:
expectant mother
lit.
a mother who expects.
-- via conversational implicature, fig.:
a mother who is pregnant
(expects delivery, at least).
----
The meaning of 'expectant father' is less obvious, and the quotes are not
really helpful. I give them again below.
The first applies to the Zapoteque, so it may be irrelevant when it comes to
'European' cultures. The 1963 sounds surely 'ironic' -- a joke on the
metaphor, 'expectant mother'. The third quote, the Trollope one, is more
obscure.
Cheers,
JL
1861 MAYNE REID Hero in spite of Himself I. 12
Whenever a Zapoteque woman is about to add one to the number of their
community, the expectant father of the child assembles all his relations in
his
cabin.
1878 TROLLOPE Is he Popenjoy? III. v. 56
There was a brutality about this which for a time made the expectant father
almost mad.
1963 â??G. BAGBYâ?? Murder's Little Helper (1964) ii. 14
â??What kind of a burglar is it that swipes maternity clothes?â?? â??Expectant
father?â??
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