growing baby

The past week or so can be given the name “The Trial of the Bump”.  Linda has been on a sort of a quest to ascertain that her belly is getting bigger because of the growing baby inside — as opposed to, say, ice cream.  There’s reason to be unsure, since we did consume a somewhat inordinate amount of ice cream, and our friends seem to be split down the middle — some saying “ooh, yes, I can definitely see your bump” and others saying “oh, and you’re not showing yet”.

There’s a small linguistic problem with the phrase “I am showing” that I wanted to explore too.  Normally, “to show” implies that there is something to show — “I am showing a house to newlyweds” or “I am showing you my toy”.  You need both the direct object (what you’re showing) and an indirect object (to whom you’re showing something).  In the case of pregnancy, the normal use of “to show” gets thrown out; it’s not necessary to show an object to anyone.  Showing becomes another adjective — not unlike saying “I am tall” or “I am pretty”.  However, there is an action being described, and an implied abbreviation of some full phrase, like “I am showing a pregnant belly to the world“.  So is it a special form of the verb that does not take a direct or an indirect object, or just an abbreviated phrase where the rest is understood from context?

Linda’s quite definitely showing, though, regardless of the linguistic difficulties.  While the frequency of ice cream ingestion must definitely be brought down, there’s an undeniable fact that there’s a very very normal, and ever-more-expanding pregnancy bump developing.