She was carrying twins and a bulky bag in her hands [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate:
Using verbs with multiple meanings

I am not sure if this is Indian English but the verb carry is often used in India to speak of a pregnant woman and often without an object as,

his wife was carrying when he joined the army.

So my first question is, does that sound ambiguous to a native English speaker?

If that doesn't sound ambiguous, I am sure this does.

She was carrying twins and a bulky bag in her hands.

This could mean,

1) She was carrying twins in her hands and a bulky bag.
2) She was pregnant with twins and was carrying a bulky bag in her hands.

In fact, the confusion can arise even without the bulky bag part. So my second question is, is carry a good enough word to talk about a pregnant woman?

Edit: Removed "would one be wise to avoid using it in that sense?" to make the topic more suitable for Q&A format of SE.

Solution 1:

Yes: carry is used of pregnancy, and this is quite ordinary and understood (with context). See ODO sense 2.

However it's not a good idea to mix carry = pregnant with and carry = transport in the same sentence. You can see ODO has the first as sense 2 and the second as sense 1.

She was carrying twins and a bulky bag in her hands

has only one verb, carrying, and this should normally be in the same sense for both objects. Thus it would normally mean that she was transporting the twins as well as the bag, because she could not be pregnant with the bag.

To split the sense of carry between the two objects would be a pun (syllepsis) if done deliberately.

Solution 2:

The OED supports the use of "carry" to mean "pregnant". Your first sentence sounds odd to me as a Canadian because I don't normally hear "carrying", by itself, to mean pregnant; normally I would expect to hear what she was carrying.

The second sentence is ambiguous as you have described. If the context does not make clear where the twins are being carried (in her arms? In an infant carrier? In her uterus?) and you are worried that a reader might get the wrong idea, then it would be best to reword the sentence. I would recommend only using the word "carry" to mean "pregnant" if the context is fully clear.

Solution 3:

Carry can mean ‘pregnant with’, but it cannot be used intransitively. It has to be something like ‘When I was carrying my son . . .’

The sentence 'She was carrying twins and a bulky bag in her hands' would probably be taken to mean that the lady was heavily laden rather than pregnant. If the writer’s intention was to indicate the latter, that would, as Andrew has said, be an example of syllepsis, in which the function of a verb changes during a sentence. Such a device is normally used for comic effect, as it is several times in ‘Have Some Madeira, M’Dear’ as sung by Donald Flanders and Michael Swann, and from which this is an extract:

When he asked, "What in Heaven?" She made no reply,

Up her mind, and a dash for the door.

Solution 4:

The first is ambiguous because there are other possible meanings.

The second is not just ambiguous, for the same reason, but also throws a bit of confusion in the mind of the reader by first leaning toward one meaning, then the other.

This confusion would be best avoided in most cases. However, it can be used deliberately as a rhetorical technique called syllepsis. It can be used for humour (often combined with playing with a common metaphor) or just to pull the audience up and make them pay more attention - hence acting as an emphasis.