What's with everyone writing 'Mom?'

[Ottersmith]

Why is everyone writing Mom in their thread instead of 'mum'? Are you American? Are you from the Midlands? If neither of these then stop doing it. It's everywhere and it's so annoying.

Excellent, you finally grasped it 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

Why would that offend! OP explicitly said not Americans

It's high school in my part of Scotland. It has it in the name of the school

Thank you, mummy

NI probably historically influenced more by language used on Ireland than England though I would suggest. However I will amend it to the British Isles then rather than the UK if we are being pedantic as I have no knowledge of NI. Or maybe amend to just England. So to go back to my original point, being English and living in England I have noticed that "smart" has recently crept in to newspapers etc and is used differently from how it used to be, being an American use. And that's my lived experience!

To the Americans on this thread, do anyone you know use the word "mum" for mom out of interest? Does the influence go the other way too still?

But I would add, @CelesteCunningham we used to walk around saying verrily ad forsooth, nd good morrow.
So stating when we used to use a word to prove that it was english and is ok to use. is a stupid and redundant argument

My point is that it never disappeared in Ireland and multiple parts of the UK. It's not an Americanism.

Yes this is a good point. We are speaking the language of 2024 not 1524. Language is a living thing and changes all the time.

The return of a word not used in most of England (say) apart from pockets is due to American influence rather than a sudden influence of the Irish. I would think.

My great grandmother used to refer to her Mom. Someone born in the 1800s definitely didn't concern themselves with copying Americanisms. I am a brummie but say Mum, much to my Mum's confusion!

Some people on mumsnet often seem surprised that there are places other than the South East.

I thought Mom was exclusively US but now realise it's Midlands as well.

I say Mam (NE Scotland)

I'm not convinced that it's returning to any great extent. I think so many of these posts are due to users reading posts by Irish or Scottish members, noticing they use different terms and immediately jumping to "wrong" or "American" (and American often seems to mean wrong or undesirable on here).

That said, the world is a lot smaller these days and media is international. It's only natural that language will evolve to be more uniform and I'm fine with that as long as people aren't criticised for using the terms or grammatical structure native to their own regions or countries.

Both got and gotten are correct. Isn't it wonderful.

I wouldn't say gotten is correct for writing formal English. I wouldnt personally use it at work. It's fine colloquially if someone prefers obvs..i live in a region where there are mad words for everything! Im not fanatical about it...I dont think we should be like the French and have laws protecting the use of English. Its our most successful export. I quite happily make up my own words and phrases some times just for my own amusement and I think they sound more descriptive but I wouldn't then argue that they were correct use on a normal basis.

🤦 That's my point. It is correct. Both are correct (although using got for the past tense would probably be corrected in Ireland), both are fine formally - although there's usually a better choice of word than any tense of "get".

I've been on here over a decade and being corrected by those who don't understand the difference between "wrong" and "different" doesn't get any less wearing.

Gotten is not technically "correct" in a formal/business/legal setting in England. At least for now.

Ireland I don't know about. But mumsnet is a UK site as far as I know.

But it is correct in Ireland, Scotland and the US (among others I'm sure), and correcting its use would be a bit narrow minded, surely you agree?

Are you familiar with Northern Ireland?

I addressed this point earlier. Just talking about England as that's all I have lived experience of on a language perspective. Can't comment (as already mentioned) on NI. I use formal language within the jurisdiction of England and Wales so haven't had correspondence from elsewhere really. So Im probably not the person to be helpful on NI formal writing!

Can't comment on those areas I'm afraid. I bow to your greater knowledge of those but it doesn't really change my original point which was confined to England only.

Also addressed upthread.
It's not an Americanism that's crept in. At all.

Yes it is.

Sorry. That was a bit dismissive. You won't (or would rarely) find it being used in that way in england more than say 5 years ago in a formal context eg bbc, newspapers etc. We weren't taught to use it in that context at school (although that's a long while ago for me). It's only recently it has crept in. Why? I would suggest American tv influence.

Smart=intelligent dates back to the early 1600s.
Clever= intelligent from the 1800s.

That it's commonly used in the US while British English tends to use the newer adjective doesn't change the fact that, as with most English language words, very very few are true "Americanisms".