To get really pissed of with people using "mom" all the time?

[SherlockHolmes]

Heard it several times on the radio today, and people on here seem to use it willy-nilly. If you're American, or from the Midlands, then fine. If not, it's MUM. With a U in the middle.

Grrrrr.

Yep. Language is organic. Get used to it. Or learn to speak Latin. It's a dead language for a reason you know.

Since Mum or Mom or Mam are all nicknames or short-forms for Mother, there is no right or wrong way to spell/pronounce it.

If, however, there is to be a correct grammar-off, then Mam clearly wins.

"Mom is used up North especially around Birmingham."

(Laughs). Mom isn't used "up north". It is used in Birmingham, which is in the midlands and always has been.

I love the richness and evolving nature of the English language. I love all the different dialects and different words used. wWere I live mum or mummy is used. OH is from the north east and says mam. Round here the children call their grandma nan-nan. In the north east it is granny. MY cousin in London says nanna.The differences in language define where you come from and who you are.

Anyone know what a snicket or a ginnel is, spice or bait?

Vive la difference.

(Laughs). Mom isn't used "up north". It is used in Birmingham, which is in the midlands and always has been.

Bunbaker I assure you it is used up North, it has been 'Mom' in my family and lots of other families locally (West Yorks) for generations.

And I know what ginnel, snicket, spice and bait all are as well :o

FGS! You're putting your judgy pants on over Mom?

DD calls me Mama because I liked the sound of it. I am not Continental European. Have no connection to any other European countries. Live pretty far up north of England. Tough shit if people don't like it.

P.S. Anything south of York is 'the south' to me

Perhaps I'm in the Midlands after all :o

I was born and raised in South Africa and there, if you are english speaking, it is Mom. My DS was born in England, but he calls me Mom because I refer to myself as that. DH, who is English, refers to me as Mum. We are a multicultural house . I am Mom, in England and I always will be.

YABU. [sticking out tongue emoticon]

I live in Birmingham and insist on Mummy/Mum. I really dislike being called Mom! It's a personal choice.

My mum has always been mum too, and she's from Newcastle Upon Tyne. She calls her mum Mam though :o

YABU - i can empathise at what may seem to be the encroachment of American English, however it seems I am now a "mom" having previously been simply an English mum due to living overseas (not the States) and I'm actually getting to rather like it even prefer it to mumsy "mum"! better said without a cloyingly sweet American accent though ;)

May I reiterate what 9while5 said and point out that "Mom" is also an Irish thing? The Irish for mother is Mamai, which is pronounced Mommy, which is obviously shortened to Mom.

Sherlock, your attitude is the absolute height of snobbery and shows how little you understand about language. Your type of argument is akin to those used by anti-immigration types about the "purity" of the people - it's just prejudiced and small-minded. Language has always changed and evolved from the moment we started to speak. Would you really rather we were still talking the "pure" language of our neanderthal ancestors?? I would imagine you're the kind of person who judges people on their accents too.

People in the Midlands use mom? Really? I spent the first 22 years of my life there and can't remember hearing anyone say it - well, apart from American tourists. Is it more a Birmingham thing?

Flounder - if you think Birmingham is the north, do you also think Newcastle is in the north pole?

OP... You could always stay away from any sites that offend your not so delicate sensibilities... "pissed of" [sic]? Really?

I travel throughout the UK and really like hearing regonal dialects and language variations.

I'm always far more irritated by chatboard drones boring others telling them what they can and can't post. Unreasonable indeed.

GreenEyesandHam I lived in Leeds for 17 years and never heard anyone refer to their mother as mom. I now live in South Yorkshire and never hear mom round here either. Ah well, you live and learn.

I am also South African, Mom was always used when I was growing up and it's what I say now, nothing at all to do with being/sounding/wanting to sound American.

People can call each other what they like as far as I'm concerned :D

I love the idea of English being a poor, persecuted language that is being overrun by all the other nasty languages (mostly American. Which, we should point out, is actually American English, so still just another variant of the same language).

English is, and has been for who knows how long, the language that "lurks in dark alleys, beats up other languages and rifles through their pockets for spare vocabulary".

This from a Brummie who called her mother mum until the age of about nine when I realised everyone else was using mom, because it was easier to say, and it was only my mother who insisted on mum because she thought mom sounded wrong...even though she was Welsh and called hers mam.

My mother hated being called mummy - said she was not an ancient egyptian wrapped in bandages!

YABU for the many reasons already used. I'm so fed up of people saying that their way is the only correct way, and any others somehow common on wannabe-Americans. Sigh.

I admit I am geographically challenged, so in my UK map (in my head)

London is 'Quite Far Away'

Birmingham is included in 'The North' as it is North from where I live (in the SW)

Scotland is 'Far Far Away'
I have been to the outer Hebrides, took two days to get there and I felt like I was going abroad- twas worth the effort though, really stunning up there.

I hope not to have offended any Northerners or people from Birmingham, which I now know is not the North, but prob somewhere in the middle

DS who's 12 still calls me Mummy! Just recently though he's started to call me by spelling out M-O-M (a bit like LOL) which is quite cool.

I get very annoyed if I am referred to as 'mom', because I am not a 'mom', I am mum or mummy. I have no problem with 'mom' being used by people who are from areas that use it generally, but I will not be called it myself. It certainly doesn't make me prejudiced or whatever bs, I just don't like it being used as a name for me.