A small wooden cradle holding a green seedling on a cobalt-blue cloth.

Original artwork, not a still

Theodore von Kármán

Everyone knows it takes a woman nine months to have a baby. But you Americans think if you get nine women pregnant, you can have a baby in a month.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The speaker jokes at the expense of what they see as an American attitude: some things take fixed time regardless of numbers. Nine months of pregnancy cannot be shortened by adding more mothers, yet the target supposedly imagines piling on people speeds up the result. It is a witty jab at brute-force thinking.

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