Discussion Groups / English Usage / July 2010

Foreword

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A long time ago the guides to nettiquette
were really easy to find. Last time I looked,
and that's a few years ago now, it took me
half a night or so, and that was because I
did know what I was looking for, not because
it was particularly easy to find.

As such, if this thread ends up irrelevant
to your group then kindly do one of the
following: ignore it. Or, edit the subject line
to only include the group for which it has
ended up relevant. And say so. Thankyou.

"Eating for Two"

'Eating for two' is traditionally an activity
advocated by friends, family and closer
associates of a newly pregnant female.

Today it has been reported that official
UK guidance is now not to 'eat for two'.

In some sense I find it reassuring that for
all the calls of "bias" when one or another
viewpoint isn't given full prominence, such
a news item can pass through an editing
suite of professional language users with
authoritative reference sources to hand
and not be remarked upon.

Whether or not it is a little phrase that
originated prior to the outbreak of mass
real-time broadcast media or not, it sure
is one which has enjoyed the fertile loam
of characterisations within narratives over
the course of the UK's film and televisual
dramatic arts' lifetime.

And is just about counter-intuitive enough
an allusion to prompt the naive and more
innocent (children, for example) to ask
what does "eating for two mean mummy?".

And I don't wish to pre-empt too much of
the condescension those more "socially-
aware" in The Medical Professions may
come to imbue the concept with, in time,
particularly given science now tells us it
is after all but an old wives' tale...

...the truth is that although poor nutrition
and unbalanced diets are still a concern
in some areas of the UK, the days when
normal physical development was retarded
or, indeed, prevented on a widespread
scale for want of the elements of a good
diet, rather than ignorance of how to compile
those elements into one, or neglect oin
being bothered, or simply a preference for
pork pie, chips, mushy peas, a bar of choccy
a few bottles of Guinness are, for now, but
a series of chapters in its history.

But it would be nice to know when and
where the phrase originated. I'm going
to guess very early 20th Century. And I'm
coming down in favour of a mass media
coining--film, book, newspaper, radio and
so on, rather than simultaneous preservation
of the concept amongst the varied weirding
sorts of yore in geogra[hically disparate
feudalisms.

G DAEB
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