Star-Crossed - June 15, 1972 - S1-E3
Question: Al tells Sam that he's there to prevent the professor and his undergraduate student from having a shotgun wedding and ruining both their lives. That implies she got pregnant. Sam succeeds in keeping them apart. Um, does that mean he prevented someone from being born?
Answer: Not necessarily; it could also mean that someone such as Jamie Lee's (the student) father discovered that the professor was having a sexual relationship with her and coerced the two into getting married.
This doesn't answer the question. You just described what a shotgun wedding is.
I think their point is that the "shotgun" aspect might not be due to a pregnancy, simply a forced attempt to legitimise an otherwise scandalous relationship.
My point was that a "shotgun wedding" doesn't always happen because an unmarried girl becomes pregnant; it can also happen because someone "stole her virtue", i.e had sex with her without being married or at least engaged to her. There's no reason to believe that Jamie Lee was, or would become, pregnant as a result of the affair or subsequent marriage.
The term "shotgun wedding" means a forced marriage due to unexpected pregnancy. It's sometimes even used when the woman is pregnant but it's planned or the wedding isn't "forced." In common colloquialism (especially in the 80's when the script was written), it doesn't refer to a force marriage just because of premarital sex (which the term "make an honest woman" is used for).
No, in the 1926 Sinclair Lewis novel 'Elmer Gantry', they talk about shotgun weddings, when a groom is forced to marry a woman because he took her virginity. Obviously, the term usually refers to a pregnant bride, but I see zendaddys point.
Camikazi Kid - June 6, 1961 - S1-E8
Question: In this episode, Sam leaps into Cam, a teenager with braces. So when Sam looks in his reflection, he sees the braces, even though he's not wearing any himself. Someone submitted a mistake from one episode when Sam's reflection is wearing glasses, even though Sam isn't. While braces aren't as easy to put on or take off as glasses, they're still not part of the body (such as a zit), so shouldn't Sam have braces himself, the same way he'd have glasses on when leaping into somebody? Or should it not be considered a mistake that the reflection is wearing glasses and Sam isn't?
Answer: The obvious answer is that it would be very difficult to fit actor Scott Bakula with braces for an episode. As for the in universe rules, we can assume that items permanently attached to one's body (dental work, pacemakers, artificial joints, etc), would stay with the original body. Otherwise Sam would suffer agony when someone's fillings were jammed into his teeth. You have to have some suspension of disbelief when it comes to things like this. Why weren't Sam's shoes constantly too big or too small? Why does everyone look him in the eye, even when he's posing as someone much taller or shorter?
Answer: He means he's there to prevent there ever being the need for a shotgun wedding-that is, to stop the affair before there is a possibility of the girl getting pregnant.
raywest ★
Which would erase the child from history. That's my point.
Brian Katcher
Not if there was never any pregnancy to begin with. There was only the chance of one.
raywest ★