Was the word 'pregnancy' used in polite conversation before I LOVE LUCY?

[Sampiro]

It’s common knowledge that I Love Lucy never used the words pregnant or pregnancy when Lucy was pregnant both on and off camera because censors considered it offensive. Something I was wondering though: was the word pregnant appropriate for use in polite conversation at this time? Married couples in TV usually slept in twin beds as well even though most didn’t IRL, so I was wondering if saying “I’m pregnant” was in the same “silly even for the times” category or if it was reflective of 1950s sensibilities.

Off topic, but I recently watched Anatomy of a Murder for the first time, which was filmed when I Love Lucy was on the air, and was shocked to hear Jimmy Stewart discussing panties, sexual relations, presence of sperm, and even sexual climax in those terms with notions of penetration without ejaculation or premature withdrawal being imparted very clearly as well (if not necessarily in those words). All this is nothing compared to any episode of Law & Order: SVU today, but while I haven’t done the research yet I’m guessing that if Lucy couldn’t be pregnant then Lee Remick being examined for sperm to determine if she’d been raped must have been little short of an oral sex scene. I was surprised censors allowed it for a wide release movie, and it made me wonder again about the word pregnant.

[Polycarp]

Based on being a child around adults in the 1950s, and so far as I know not particularly the cause of ‘be careful how you talk around the boy’, polite conversation would eschew terminology related to reproduction and primary or secondary sex characteristics (other than facial hair). But it was not hiding the head in the sand, but delicacy – people would think nothing of mentioning that Mrs. Jones was “expecting” (“a baby” rather than “a railway express delivery” being understood). Both technical and vulgar terms were proper only in the necessary contexts – a rape trial would sound like a medical dissertation on sexual behavior. News reports on such situations were notable for careful inferences that avoided being explicit but nonetheless using the proper code words to fill in anyone who knew the code throgh having grown up with its use.

[Zsofia]

My dad doesn’t say it by preference - he says “expecting” or even “in a family way”. Not that he has much call, since that’s the kind of thing women talk about. He’ll be 80 in May. When I was a kid I was really confused about what the hell these ladies were expecting. A package? A surprise party?

[Kimstu]

It sez here, it sez:

Since the mid 1930s, films exhibited a seal and number, showing that they were in compliance with the Motion Picture Production Code Administration (better known as the Breen Office because of the PCA’s head Joseph Breen). The Hays Production Code was amended in 1951 (its first major revision since 1934!) with content restrictions for the film subjects of drugs, abortion, prostitution, and kidnapping. The constraints of the system were increasingly criticized by the mid-1950s, because filmmakers were forced to make changes in their films in order to qualify for a seal of approval, but some filmmakers were willing to take risks.

The first studio-produced film from Hollywood that was released without the seal, deliberately, was producer/director Otto Preminger’s daring The Moon is Blue (1953), a dated sex comedy about seduction and chastity that was also condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency, in part because of its offensive use of prohibited words such as “virgin,” “seduce,” “pregnant,” and “mistress” in the dialogue.

However, I’m not sure whether or where the Hays Code ever said in so many words that “pregnant” was prohibited film dialogue.

[Peanuthead]

**There’s the old story about the kid who asked his mother what “pregnant” means. She said it means “carrying a child”. The kid then wrote a paper for school: The fireman went up the ladder into the burning building. When he came down the ladder he was pregnant.That one got a tremendous laugh from Art Linkletter’s audience back in the late 1950s or early 1960s.

[Washoe]

I was under the impression that the word ‘pregnant’ was used in the show. I read a biography of Lucille Ball when I was in elementary school, and I remember the issue being discussed in the book. The production company hired a Protestant minister to act as an on-set consultant in ethical matters. When the censors axed the word ‘pregnant,’ the consultant said “what’s wrong with ‘pregnant’”? So it was decided at that point that it was acceptable, and they used it freely after that.

[aceplace57]

“With Child” was a more delicate way of expressing the condition. I’ve heard my older relatives say that many times.

[Walloon]

@Washoe

I was under the impression that the word ‘pregnant’ was used in the show.

From Ball of Fire: The Tumultuous Life of Lucille Ball:

Bearing in mind the current network restrictions — no sexually suggestive language of any kind, no double beds for couples to sleep in, not even the use of the word “pregnant” — [producer and head writer Jess] Oppenheimer warned the prospective father [Desi Arnaz], “They’ll never let you do that.”

“Why won’t they? And who are ‘they’?”

“The sponsor, the network, the advertising agency.”

Their sponsor was the Phillip Morris Company. Alfred Lyons, the chairman, intervened on their behalf to allow the pregnancy to be featured in several episodes of the season.

Powerful as Lyons’s words were, they could not alter the network’s rigid internal law. Lucy could be “expecting” or “with child,” but the word “pregnant” could not be uttered in prime time.

[Walloon]

Time magazine, 1928:

Leaping and snarling like a small, vivacious cougar, Rev. William A. Sunday preached at the Coliseum, in St. Louis. It was the fifth week of the projected seven-week revival meeting; Billy Sunday had signed up about 4,000 converts and he wanted some more. He gave a “sermon” on “The Three Crosses” and talked about the opera Faust, in which Marguerite, a pregnant girl, dies of broken-heart.

Time, 1929:

Ever since doctors and other workers with X-rays discovered that the rays sterilized them (now they protect themselves by aprons of rubber impregnated with lead), they have been chary of X-raying women who might be gravid. It is not always certain that a woman is pregnant.

Time, 1932:

He said he had not believed Miss Wyckoff was pregnant. Nevertheless, he had performed a curettage (scraping of the walls of the uterus).

Life magazine, 1940:

Last week a compromise began to be talked about: that no attempted be made to feed the working populations of the conquered countries, but only the children, the old, the sick, and pregnant and nursing mothers.

Life magazine, 1943, article by actress Veronica Lake:

Mrs. Sturges, who was also pregnant, was on the set and I sat down beside her and talked girl-talk. I dropped out casually, “Don’t tell Preston, but I’m pregnant.”

Life magazine, 1943:

For the first time since the British established their rule over the island in 1800, vital statistics showed more deaths than births. Women rarely became pregnant. Men were in no condition to produce babies. Sexual intercourse grew less.

Life, 1947:

Whichever way she chooses to solve her dilemma,arguments will continue to rage. She must steel herself because sooner or later some man is bound to comment, “a woman hasn’t any problems if you keep her pregnant in summer and barefoot in winter.”

Headline in Daytona Beach Morning Journal, 1947: “Husbands And Pregnant Wives To Be Sent Home”.

Headline in Kentucky New Era, 1949: “Pregnant Mother Dies During Funeral Rites”

Time magazine, 1951:

Doctors at Sacred Heart Hospital in Hanford, Calif, could hardly believe their ears: a 24-year-old housewife, eight months pregnant, arrived one morning last week and announced that her unborn baby was crying. The doctors listened. Sure enough, faint wails were coming from the fetus.

Headline in The Milwaukee Sentinel, 1951: “May Pregnant Wives Remain in High School?”

Time review of A Place in the Sun, 1951:

Then an obstacle intrudes; the factory girl is pregnant and demanding that he marry her. Between desperate maneuvers to put her off, George basks in the brightening promise of the right marriage and a front-office career.

Time, 1951:

In the late summer of 1946, when she wrote to North Dakota’s Senator Milton R. Young, Mrs. Matt Fischer was in what she described as “a desperate situation.” She was seven months pregnant with her second child and her husband, an Army staff sergeant, was stationed in Vienna.

Time, 1952:

Pamela, 9, asked her pregnant mother: “Who put the baby under your heart?” Linda, 6, was puzzled because “men have hair on their chests but women don’t.” Vicky, 5, instead of praising the toothpowder of a new sponsor, Amion, announced: “I don’t want that stuff. I want Colgate’s.” And Sandra, 11, asked her father what “S.O.B.” meant.
These outspoken children are heard by listeners in six states on The Cliff Johnson Family (weekdays, 8:15 a.m.), a 45-minute show broadcast over Chicago’s station WGN.

[Hari_Seldon]

My mother was pregnant with my kid sister (11 years younger) in 1948 and I am sure they used “pregnant” to describe it. Later on, I heard the expression “has a cake in the oven” and I couldn’t believe it. I was certainly not under the impression there was anything risque about it.

[Kent_Clark]

@Walloon

Time magazine, 1928:

Time, 1929:

Time, 1932:

Life magazine, 1940:

Life magazine, 1943, article by actress Veronica Lake:

Life magazine, 1943:

Life, 1947:

Yeah, but that’s just because Henry Luce was a big ol’ perv.

My mother was a nurse and believe me, she had no trouble using precise terminology for anything whenever she needed to. Even with that, she tended to use the terms “pregnant” and “going to have a baby” about equally.

The 50’s were a more euphemistic time anyway. Not just about sex, either. I remember news stories where cancer was referred to as “an incurable illness.”

[Ronald_C.Semone]

@kunilou

The 50’s were a more euphemistic time anyway. Not just about sex, either. I remember news stories where cancer was referred to as “an incurable illness.”

And at least until the 1950s the newspapers referred to abortions as “an illegal operation.”

[Annie-Xmas]

Rape was called “assault.”

In Gone with th Wind, Scarlett gets all embarassed when Rhett says “pregnant”

[Markxxx]

On “I Love Lucy,” according to show producer Jess Oppenheimer, it was also decided by the writers, that the word “'specting” in Desi’s mangled English was a LOT funnier than pregnant.

You also have to remember it wasn’t so much the words, back then, but what they ment. The whole pregnancy issue with “I Love Lucy,” didn’t revolve around the words but the fact that if you show a pregnant Lucy, then people will THINK about the Ricardos having sex.

I recall a bio from Jack Benny’s daughter and she relates a story about censorship her father told her.

It seems they had a radio (remember it’s radio not TV) where Jack is in the bathtub and Rochester comes in to talk to him. Now Rochester is Jack’s vallet so it’s entirely appropriate that he do this.

So Jack says “Come in Rochester. Sit down.”

The censor said “Can’t say that, because people will think Rochester is sitting on the toliet.”

So Jack says “OK, I’ll say, ‘Come in Rochester, Sit on the side of the tub’.”

Censor said, “Can’t do that, because then people will think, ‘that’s odd why doesn’t he sit on the toliet instead of the tub’.”

So Jack says, “OK, I’ll just say, ‘come in’.”

Censor says “No you can’t do that, because everyone knows Jack is good to Rochester and would never have him just stand there and talk to him, he’d ask him to sit down.”

Now whether this actually happened, I don’t know but it shows you the kind of thinking involved.

Finally remember back in those days, it was common in comedy especially to use innuendo or double entendre to get laughs or convey things.

My favourite example is from “Burn and Allen.”

George) I can’t rumba anymore

Gracie) Just a few more minutes

George) Gracie I’m too danced out

Gracie) And dancing will help you lose that weight

(If you say “too danced out,” quick enough it comes out as “too damn stout”)

[Jim_s_Son]

When i was in junior high school 45 years ago, one of my teachers said his wife was pregnant. They had been at her parent’s house for Sunday dinner and during the meal he casually mentioned “Karen’s pregnancy is going very well.” His father-in-law hit the ceiling, saying that was not the kind of thing you discussed at dinner.
Isn’t there a story that CBS hired a Protestant minister, a Catholic priest and a Jewish rabbi to make sure they said nothing offensive. When CBS said they wouldn’t use the word “pregnant”, one of them said “Why not? That’s what she is”.

[Bijou_Drains]

Wasn’t part of the movie code that if someone was on a bed they had to have 1 foot on the floor at all times?

[RealityChuck]

Remember, TV in the 50s was more restrictive than movies of the time. Advertisers were king and advertisers didn’t want anything that might upset potential customers, or to portray their product in a bad light. With advertisers not wanting to offend customers, and the networks not wanting to offend advertisers, censors were extremely cautious in what they’d allow. What was acceptable in print would not be acceptable on TV.

Oh, and the “one foot on the floor” rule is a myth. Here is the Production Code online*. Any scenes in bedrooms were only supposed to be in “Good Taste.”

*My apologies for the wretched web design.

[Walloon]

The media in the 1950s, from least restrictive to most restrictive, were:

1. Books
2. Plays
3. Movies
4. Radio
5. Television

In Hollywood movies, couples were seen in bed together, all feet off the ground, as late as 1934 (Six of a Kind, The Black Cat), and again as early as 1953 (The President’s Lady).

[md2000]

What was the story about Groucho on TV and his guest, the lady with 10 kids?

GROUCH: “10 kids???”
LADY: “I love my husband very much.”
GROUCH: “I love my cigar too, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while.”

Even in the 60’s, My Three Sons, the only clue mentioned that a woman was ‘spectin’ (and she didn’t even know hereself, duh!) was that she fainted several times.

There was an episode of Petticoat Junction where one of the girls was quite pregnant (I guess theyshowed that by then) and they had to perform on stage. They did all these tricks, like holding a bunch of balloons infront of her, and the other two swung their guitars in front of her o obstruct the view, until a just the wrong moment to match the lyrics, she lost the balloons and everyone could see.

IIRC it was some country song and just at the time she sang something like “…and I don’t know why he left me…” she popped her balloons…

Everyone laughs, and then she blows a gasket and tells the audience they’re rude and her husband loves her very much… yada yada…

[alphaboi867]

@Markxxx

…It seems they had a radio (remember it’s radio not TV) where Jack is in the bathtub and Rochester comes in to talk to him. Now Rochester is Jack’s vallet so it’s entirely appropriate that he do this.

So Jack says “Come in Rochester. Sit down.”

The censor said “Can’t say that, because people will think Rochester is sitting on the toliet.”

So Jack says “OK, I’ll say, ‘Come in Rochester, Sit on the side of the tub’.”

Censor said, “Can’t do that, because then people will think, ‘that’s odd why doesn’t he sit on the toliet instead of the tub’.”

So Jack says, “OK, I’ll just say, ‘come in’.”

Censor says “No you can’t do that, because everyone knows Jack is good to Rochester and would never have him just stand there and talk to him, he’d ask him to sit down.”

Now whether this actually happened, I don’t know but it shows you the kind of thinking involved…

“Come in Rochester, sit in this chair which is in the bathroom for some reason.”