Mom or Mum?

[yvr girl]

Personally, I say Mum, but spell it Mom.

[Beware the Beast Man]

1. Female Progenitor

But sometimes I lovingly call her the Carrier of the Fertilized Egg.

[Wat_Tyler]

2. Your devotion is so touching, Beastman.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have a good cry.

[iverglas]

3. mum

's the word.

C'mon, how could one resist? ;)

One of the worst examples of the USAmerican indoctrination of our youth is the practice of calling one's mum "mawm". I spell it "mum" just to be perverse, and to make sure nobody reads me as saying "mawm".

The "mawm" is pretty recent even in the US. A few years ago I watched an old Father Knows Best from the late 50s, and Kitten clearly spoke of her "mummy" -- although in Little Women, the girls had a "marmy", and I don't know how that was actually pronounced (e.g. Boston "pahk the cah"-like, "mahmy").

Back when Lady Di expired, a work colleague of mine, a bilingual Canadian from France, asked me what the word in the floral tribute on her casket was. It was the little princes' wreath, and it spelled "Mummy". She'd never seen it, in all her years in Canada.

When I was little in the 50s, I had two grandmothers and one grandfather (all born in England). The more residually Brit of the two grannies was called Nanny, and the other Gramma. The youngest generation of the family in modern-day Canada, my sister's two daughters (aged 5 and 7), now have a Gramma and a Pops on our side, and a vavó and a vavô (vavoo and vavoh, grandpa and grandma) on the Portuguese side.

I had a hell of a time last summer trying to introduce myself to a young grandmother-aged Chinese woman who was our new neighbour. We were admiring each other's front gardens and trading some plants, in the absence of her English-speaking son and daughter-in-law, and she was chatting away to me in Chinese, and I to her in English. I went through the usual introductory motions: pointing to myself and saying "<iverglas>", and pointing to her and looking inquisitive. No response or comprehension. So when my next-door friend came out, I tried pointing to me and saying my name and then to her and saying her name ... although this might have been confusing, since we have the same name. ;) No dice, again, even when we added my co-vivant to the equation.

So I hauled her over to the another neighbours' house, where the Chinese-speaking mum and bilingual pre-teen girl, a friend of mine, were outside, and explained to the daughter what I was after. Much discussion ensued, but there was no way we could get across to the smiling (and otherwise verbose) grandmother-neighbour what I was on about. Ultimately, the daughter explained to me that the concept was just foreign to the new neighbour: she would not normally be addressed by any name at all in Chinese, and would be called a title, like "grandmother" or "auntie". Something I should really have known.

Speaking of which, does anybody around here actually say "awnt"?

[yvr girl]

4. I'm still angry with my grade one teacher

We were doing cards for our mothers for Mother's Day. I had written "Mummy" on mine. She told me that it was wrong. It should be 'Mommy.' For years afterwards, I thought that mum and mummy were wrong. I of course now realize that my teacher was wrong.

[Beware the Beast Man]

6. If your mother was indeed a wrapped and preserved corpse,

then there would be no arguement :)

[iverglas]

7. is someone

not getting it? I.e., missing the entire point of the thread?

"If your mother was indeed a wrapped and preserved corpse, then there would be no arguement"

"Mommy" (when pronounced maw-my) is a word that is virtually unique to the US and, as noted, seems a relative newcomer even there; although it may have been spelled "mom(my)", in the US and other places, the word had until recently still been pronounced "mum(my)" (or given that schwah-ish uh/ah sound, quite different from the long "aw" in today's "mawm") even in the US. The rest of the English-speaking world, while it is undoubtedly now being infiltrated by the USAmerican spelling and pronunciation, has happily had its mums and mummies for a very long time, without any need for these mawms and mawmies at all.

If more USAmericans appreciated the fact that there are lots of ways of doing things besides the way they do 'em, and that many other people in fact do things quite differently from the way USAmericans do 'em (and have just as good reasons for the way they do things, and are just as happy with the way they do things), then there might just be a whole lot fewer arguments wars all round.

Yr average Brit would know what a trunk, hood and wrench are. Yr average USAmerican wouldn't have a clue what a boot, bonnet or spanner was. Ditto for lots of common words in Brit and/or Canadian English.

It's really just fortunate for USAmericans that their media does have such reach. Otherwise, the rest of us would sometimes have no idea what they're saying or talking about.

[Beware the Beast Man]

8. Do you even have an iota of a sense of humor?

I know what "mummy" means. I call my mother "mum." Chill out with the sociology lesson already.

[iverglas]

9. indeed

I just didn't happen to find the comment funny. Perhaps you can explain the joke.

Do you have an iota of knowledge of / sensitivity to the business of cultural imperialism?

[asthmaticeog]

10. Oh for crying out loud, iverglass...

"We were doing cards for our mothers for Mother's Day. I had written 'Mummy' on mine. She told me that it was wrong. It should be 'Mommy.' For years afterwards, I thought that mum and mummy were wrong. I of course now realize that my teacher was wrong."

So a yank makes a pun, then he's an imperialist in need of sensitivity training, but you disagree with your teacher and she's just plain "wrong," no qualifier, no room for debate? Being accepting of other cultures could maybe start with you. You're being ridiculously inflexible on a trivial matter.

[iverglas]

12. do try again

The childhood tale you quote was related by quite another person. Not moi.

So I guess you didn't have a point.

But hey, let me answer anyhow.

"For years afterwards, I thought that mum and mummy were wrong. I of course now realize that my teacher was wrong."
"So a yank makes a pun, then he's an imperialist in need of sensitivity training, but you disagree with your teacher and she's just plain 'wrong,' no qualifier, no room for debate?"

The teacher was indeed quite wrong when she said (to the other poster): "it <"Mummy"> was wrong. It should be 'Mommy'." It is not at all "wrong" to say Mommy (and the poster who related the tale did not say it was), but it is 100% wrong to say that it is wrong to say Mummy. Get it?

"Being accepting of other cultures could maybe start with you. You're being ridiculously inflexible on a trivial matter."

Hmm. Did you observe me saying that someone in some other culture oughta be doing things the way I do? I don't actually think so. So I don't actually know what the point here might be.

I couldn't care less what USAmericans call their maternal parents. That's their choice, and I have no desire in the world to influence it.

The fact that you characterize a cultural practice, and the colonization of that culture through the replacement of its language by another culture's, as "trivial" pretty much makes my point about understanding/sensitivity, I'd say.

[asthmaticeog]

18. Oooops. Mea culpa.

My eyes saw yvr girl, my brain saw iverglass. So that was a mostly pointless exercise, and I apologise. Except that I'll stand by my parting comment, because you've given me a fresh reason to do so:

"The fact that you characterize a cultural practice, and the colonization of that culture through the replacement of its language by another culture's, as "trivial" pretty much makes my point about understanding/sensitivity, I'd say."

Accented English (and there is no unaccented English) is hardly a worthy case for cultural imperialism. Cultures migrate, you see, and influence isn't the same thing as colonization. Compared to, say, the outlawing of religious rites or ethnic festivals by an occupying power, the encroachment of a neighboring culture's slightly different accent is indeed a trivial matter. Incredibly so. So no such point of yours is made.

[iverglas]

19. let's recall the subject

All I'd had to say on it, really, was this:

One of the worst examples of the USAmerican indoctrination of our youth is the practice of calling one's mum "mawm". I spell it "mum" just to be perverse, and to make sure nobody reads me as saying "mawm".

It was the other poster who said, in reply:

She told me that it was wrong. It should be 'Mommy.' For years afterwards, I thought that mum and mummy were wrong.

-- and this is what you were actually talking about.

And that isn't a case of what you are now talking about:
Cultures migrate, you see, and influence isn't the same thing as colonization.

It is a situation in which a child engaged in an expression of her culture -- the use of a word that was characteristic of her culture's language -- and was told that it, and she, were WRONG.

That isn't "influence". That's cultural imperialism -- presumably, in that case, being practised by an indigenous actor whose culture had already been colonized to the extent that she had lost this element of her own culture and internalized the other -- i.e., a Canadian teacher.

I object to "encroachment" when it obliterates distinctive elements of an existing culture and, as in this case, is plainly just symptomatic of a much more thorough-going transformation, and of the process by which it occurs: the export and consumption of foreign cultural products, for profit of course. (Cultural and economic imperialism go hand in hand, and takeovers of economies depend to a large extent on takeovers of cultures. Ask Jack Valenti.)

But I still don't go around telling children that they are WRONG if they say "mawm".

And since you seem to have missed the fact that all *this* was my point, my point does indeed seem to stand.

[asthmaticeog]

20. The subject, iverglass,

is that if you want to argue that slightly differently accentented forms of the exact same language are a worthy exemplar or a takeover, keep it up. The laugh I'm having at you expese is doing wonders for my mood, because Canadian "culture" is less different from American culture writ large than Ohio culture is from Texas culture.

[iverglas]

21. what fun

The subject, iverglass, is that if you want to argue that slightly differently accentented forms of the exact same language are a worthy exemplar or a takeover, keep it up.

If only that's what I were arguing. But hey, you feel free to keep misrepresenting what I'm saying.

The laugh I'm having at you expese is doing wonders for my mood, because Canadian "culture" is less different from American culture writ large than Ohio culture is from Texas culture.

If you really want to be / portray yourself as an ugly/ignorant American, and if you get your jollies by doing so, it ain't my business.

I'm quite aware that there are major cultural differences within the US. I was more than disappointed, on my most recent trip down the eastern seaboard, that expressions of those cultures, in things like restaurants and the food available in them, are increasingly hard to find. I'd love to see all of you defending your cultures against Hollywood and McDonalds, too. For a whole lot of reasons.

But to say that Canadian " 'culture' " (I'll use the quotation marks you used, although I'm at a loss to know what you used them for) is less different from what monolithic USAmerican culture there is than sub-cultures within the US are from one another is simply to display one's ignorance of one's subject, and of the broader subject of culture itself.

[asthmaticeog]

22. You keep calling me ignorant

but you proffer no evidence. How, exactly, am I ignorant of the broader subject of culture itself? You're slinging nothing, and my statement remains unrefuted by any evidence. Cultural differences between the US and Canada are negligible compared to the similarities.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

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[HEyHEY]

27. How the hell did this argument break out?

[Beware the Beast Man]

11. Since when is making a witty comment about Egyptian mummies

an example of cultural imperialism?
If you would actually take the time to read the post, rather than judge me as some monosyllabically-spewing American lothario, than you would see I was making fun of the context of the word "mummy." Good God, I can't even believe I am typing this!

[iverglas]

13. "lothario"?

You're coming on to me??

[Beware the Beast Man]

14. Charming...

:eyes: Again, the ugly American uses a big word and forgets its meaning. Sue me.

[iverglas]

16. gosh

That was a joke.

[Beware the Beast Man]

17. Yes, but it wasn't funny.

[iverglas]

15. similar experience

In the early/mid 60s, I attended public school in London North. (Interrobang can attest to the class-consciousness of London, Ont, and the superiority of those from North over an East of Adelaide-er like myself.)

One day in grade 6, the teacher asked for an example of a word with a long "a" sound. I volunteered "vase", which I pronounced "vaze". Ew, said the teacher, don't you find that terribly harsh? wouldn't you rather say "vahze"? No, I thought to myself, I find "vahze" terribly affected. And another little brick was added to my own class consciousness, since all I saw was a snooty woman looking down her snoot at my working-class-ness.

Now actually, "vahze" is what they don't say in the US, but what they do say in the US is "vace". "Vaze" seems to be a southern-Ontarian middle ground, although I haven't delved into the question in depth. The pronunciation question shows up here:

http://dialect.topography.chass.utoronto.ca/dt_questionnaire.php

Thank you for helping us with our survey. We are trying to discover what words are used by people in Canada and U.S. regions bordering Canada, and how they pronounce them. ...

8. For you, does VASE rhyme with face, days, cause, or has?

And oh look:

16. Does MOM, as in 'My Mom's gone fishing with my Dad', rhyme with tum or Tom?

Anyhow, being made to feel that one is "wrong" -- inferior -- because one is engaging in a practice that is characteristic of one's group, the group from which one draws important parts of one's identity, be it one's class or ethnicity or sex or whatever, can be extremely harmful to personality development. Teachers should certainly be more aware of / sensitive to such characteristics than either yours or mine was.

[asthmaticeog]

5. I call mine "Muther."

[Wat_Tyler]

23. Is this our first Canada forum flamewar, then?

Oh, how I've lived for this day! :party:

[HEyHEY]

28. I somehow always envisioned it being about backbacon

But I'll take this!

[PSU84]

24. Mum's the word...

But I say mom. Mum is so....English.