son of a gun

i just learned the history behind that expression last night while watching "myth busters" on the discovery channel. great show.

anyways, the expression comes from a civil war myth. a man on the battlefield was shot through the testes. the bullet then hit a woman standing some distance behind him, striking her somewhere in the lower abdomen. 9 months later, she gave birth to several children.

the myth was, unfortunately, busted. they tested it using a civil war-era rifle, a pouch of sperm sandwiched between several layers of canvas etc. representing the guys clothes, and some sort of jello-y stuff under several layers of clothing to stand in for the woman. though the bullet passed cleanly through the "man" and hit the "woman" behind him, there was no trace of the sperm in or around the entry wound. they speculated that any that actually got caught on the bullet was fried by the heat.

don't you feel better about knowing that?