Legal Commentary

?Labored?

By Kenneth Anderson

Eugene has given me the language usage bug.  I happened to see this in an article from a UK website called Orange.  Here?s the usage that intrigued me:

Strangely, three months before the birth of Guangchun, his family?s sow also labored a weird shaped piglet, which had eight legs, two mouths and four ears.

I have never seen ?labored? used as a verb in this way before.  Is it a British usage?  Is it commonplace?  I?ve never heard this usage before.  (Let me clarify ? I don?t mean the ordinary expression ?went into labor,? but rather the specific verb usage here.)

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on August 13, 2010 (boomark / email).