'Illegitimate' is illegitimate

Using that word to describe a child born "out of wedlock" — itself a phrase whose time has come and gone — is one of those indicators that mark you as a geezer.

Just as having a landline is the province of the inhabitants of Geriatric Park, calling a child "illegitimate" because it happens to have been born to an unwed woman is passé.

FunFact: In Sweden, ... "since the late 1980s a small majority of all births and a large majority of first births have been to unwed mothers and fathers."

Illegitimate?

I don't think so.

And while we're on the subject, "love child" is also way past over.

DeNeen L. Brown, in an August 23, 2008 Washington Post Style section front page article, wrote that the term is used with approbation when applied to the offspring of an unmarried Hollywood couple but was still radioactive in the political arena (see John Edwards, et al).

Note to file: The very use of the term marks you as a relic unless it's ironic.

An aside: as the editorial cartoon of September 27, 1884 reproduced above demonstrates, today's political artists of destruction don't have a patch on their predecessors.