Do you use "our" in front of close family names?

[mabelandmaud]

I call my close family members "Our Tom" or "Our Julie" etc. All my family do this. I'm from the north West Midlands - near Stoke on Trent and have a Northern Irish parent. I'm just wondering where this comes from, is it a regional thing, or a class thing, or a colloquial thing?

Not to refer to everyone in the family but occasionally in conversation if, for example, those present know of several Barbaras and the Barbara in question is a family member, if that makes sense.

South Midlands.

No, never heard it where I live but am very aware of it as a northern thing.

Agree with a pp who said it stemmed from high density housing and small variety of names so used to identify.

It sounds nice but, strangely, whenever I hear it I think of how lucky "our Julie" must be and how sad and lonely "Julie"must feel.

"Julie's coming"
"Our Julie?"
"No..... t'other one. Julie"

Yes. I'm from Yorkshire. It sounds more like 'ar Tom' 🤣.

DHs family do (South Yorkshire) but DH doesn't, I don't (West/North Yorkshire) and have never heard any of my family use it.

I think it's something borrowed from those up north tbh, it makes me feel warm like I used to when watching emmerdale

Nope in N East Scotland
Ma loon or ma quine.

Northern and not “working class”. No, never.

Manc/Merseyside/West Yorkshire. Very commonly heard in Manchester and Merseyside. “Our lass” “your lass” more common in Yorkshire.

I only say it when there’s a need to differentiate e.g. “your Liz” - colleague’s wife - as opposed to colleague Liz, for example.

I never have, but it was very common in Manchester where I grew up. Haven’t heard it since moving away (and had forgotten about it until this post).

Ha ha! My in law cousin does this. Always writes R (name).

Although the in-law relatives see me as family and (for instance) refer to me as their cousin (especially since my husband died), I don't think they call me our/R.

Yep, south west.

My mom does, we're West Midlands

I've heard people say ' my ' or 'wor' where I live in the north east .

It seems to only be said by people with large families.

My family is small and we've never said it , except for in the case of my two uncle John's ( who were brothers in laws) . One was 'wor john ' .

Our Graham! Ah, blast from the past!

DH and his family say it (West Yorks)

I can't stand it! 😖

No. Not down here in south Hampshire

Nottingham working class. Yes. (One young kid about another sibling)

Can't remember it in my own family but as a young child I can't remember paying attention to adult conversation (Notts working class miners)

Me too. Saying my does not come naturally to me although my mum always corrected me and we werent allowed to talk like everyone else on the estate (that was fun🙄.

It's not me with a full e either is it. It's me if someone stopped you midway through the e. Quite a hard stop to it.

Love this! When we first moved to South Yorks, for ages I thought our neighbour’s daughter was called Ann Marie, till she corrected me. She was saying ‘R Marie’. 😊

🤣 aw, now I'll always think that!

Same here

Yep. It's kind of like "mi mom' .. not really 'my'

I suspect the next generation are not using ir so much cus we went to uni. Sad really. Love regional dialect and ways of speaking despite the powerful forces that can result in shame around them ..glad I moved beyond that

I grew up in Brum - I'd often hear people refer to the youngest child in a sibship as "our bab" and the next youngest as "our kid". @Kimke sorry you find other people's cultures "weird"!