Isn't the premise that the two terms describe the same moment incorrect.
Neither refers to the birth itself; they refer to terms before and after
the birth. The birth itself is betwixt and between these moments, a
transition from one to the other.
John
On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 1:23 PM, david ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Feb 22, 2016, at 7:31 PM, John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
mother.
Before (pre-natal) and after (postpartum) the baby is separated from the
Indeed. And thank you.
She knows the pre and post bit, so the question becomes why is the same
moment described in different ways? Why at one moment whatever “natal”
means literally, and why in another “partum,” separation”? I wrote that
multiple views of one event or thing are quite normal in a language—lots of
words for snow and all that—but I couldn’t explain the difference between
natal and partum. I’m not implying that it’s hard to explain, merely that
I don’t have the Latin for the judging.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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