In a famly way

100% reliable contraception is inconceivable. What’s so funny about this? For most of the last century it wasn’t considered polite to even mention pregnancy in general conversation, and when the subject did come up it was done euphemistically. A woman was said, to be in a “family way” or “with child.” “Pregnant” was considered too gross a word. Remember, anything to do with body functions and words associated with them are still “hot buttons”, that is they spark reactions, usually laughter but anger, anxiety and embarrassment come up too. So, in the old photo we see two women out working in a garden in their or someone’s yard, or they might just be cutting grass. One of them is clearly pregnant and complains to the other that she wasn’t supposed to get “that way.” It’s not clear how or why she has these thoughts. It might just be regret or perhaps a religious belief. But more than likely she was using some form of contraception, a device or method intended to prevent pregnancy. Some religions advocate the “rhythm method” for this, which means having sex at those times of the month when pregnancy is not feasible. Back when the photo was taken there were no birth control pills or IUD’s, which meant that the only real device for contraception would be a rubber prophylactic. So even though the picture is more than 100 years old the truth of what the other woman says is still undeniable. She says it’s INCONCEIVABLE that any method of contraception would work 100% of the time. In other words, nothing is perfect. Something can and usually does, go wrong. Of course the real joke here is that “conceive” also means to give birth, and “inconceivable” means not believable and also not able to have children. So it’s inconceivable that the first woman could conceive that she was guaranteed not to conceive. And THAT’s what’s so funny! #joke #pun #ESL #ELT #ELL #ELD #ESOL #EFL #TESOL #TESL #Englishlanguage #English #language #learnenglish #twinglish #wordplay #pregnant #inconceivable #contraception