Friday, August 29, 2008

Someday?

Elizabeth says "I'd like to have a baby someday."

I know it sounds mad crazy nitpicky, but the use of the word "someday" sounds so wrong to me in this context. I'm Liz's age, and I cannot imagine a woman my age - especially when she's married and her career's established and her husband's career's established - using the word someday there. She'd have a timeline - she'd say "I'd like to have a baby within the next five years" or "I'd like to have a baby sometime after Françoise starts kindergarten." Or if she isn't so into strict family planning, she'd just say "I'd like to have a baby" and let nature take its course. (And actually, now that I think about it, she'd probably say "we" instead of "I".)

"Someday" would be used by teenagers or by people who don't know whom they'd have the baby with or who don't know when they're going to be able to afford to have a baby or for whom there are too many factors still up in the air to allow for long-term family planning. It sounds so wrong coming from a 27-year-old newlywed with a stable career. If this were a translation, I'd cross it out as being unidiomatic.

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