Levi Johnston and Fat Girlfriend Arrive in St. Paul (PDS & NY Mag Vitriol)

I do not think the word though nowadays has the original connotations and really does not hurt the parents because it is a term that so many people use just meaning that someone is being nasty, objectionable or in some cases just a pain in the neck.

I think there was a shift with this mainly because people criticized others for using it saying that it hurt the innocent child more than it did the parents. Nowadays though the child probably would not even appreciate the original meaning of the word and would in many cases be amazed that is means a child born to unwed parents.

Also so many people have children and are not married that the term in many cases is redundant. Many people believe that because the parents live together and are a family unit that does not apply that their children.

Also as unwed parents are now in all walks of life that people feel to use the term for a professional family is totally inappropriate. I have known factory manages, teachers etc all with children out of wedlock. The teacher continued to work until she went on maternity leave and returned to work afterwards there was no problem with the school the parents that she was not married and pregnant. I would go on to say she later married and is now expecting her third child but it does almost seem the norm that in most families the first child is born before the parents marry even if they go on to marry afterwards.

Time have changed and I fear not for the better.

The media are really trying to spin it and infer she and the boyfriend have indulged in underage sex.

They are deliberately trying to confuse age of consent and under age ie under 18 when the child was conceived but if age of consent is 16 then no law has been broken which they are trying to say in a backdoor fashion

Is this the Jessica Pressler? She's in the "media biz".

Hey, thanks for that godawful scary picture, I'm going to print off a few hundred of them and distribute them to some of the ghetto tenements downtown, if that doesn't scare off the rats and cockroaches, nothing will.

You have performed a wonderful public service for many families in poverty this day, kudos to you! ;)

“it is a term that so many people use just meaning that someone is being nasty, objectionable or in some cases just a pain in the neck.”

Similar fates have met other words, like “stupid” and “faggot,” which lose their special meaning through overuse. But that’s what keeps etymologists in business.

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