So yesterday, as I was sitting through a seemingly interminable meeting at work, someone said: "Well, we would deal with that, but the entire Blahbidiblah Committee is pregnant."
This comment through everyone off for a while, because although a couple of people in our department have recently had babies, it is not obvious that others are pregnant. I just thought that maybe I had missed the exciting summer developments, being out of the country. But it turns out others were as confused as I, and the whole discussion jumped its tracks as we all tried to remember who exactly is on the Blahbidiblah Committee and then ascertain whether (through medical miracle or not) they are pregnant.
It turns out that what the commenter meant was that "the whole" (i.e. a couple members of) the Blahbidiblah Committee are on maternity leave, having recently had babies.
Which, at long last, leads me to my question: Do we have a good concise adjective to describe someone who recently gave birth? I briefly considered "postgnant," but the "stgn" consonant cluster is uncomfortable in English.
Suggestions?
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3 comments:
Alternate linguistic query:
Find the incorrectly used homonym in the third line of Isis' post.
How about "postpartum"?
what is wrong with maternity leave or paternity leave? why confuse the matter?
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