Proud Brummie MP Jess Phillips has revealed she demands that Parliament’s official report records her talking about her mom in the House of Commons - and not her “mum”.
Like many people in Birmingham and the Black Country, she talks about her mom and spells the word with an “o” in the middle.
In the south, however, the word is written and pronounced “mum”, and some people think that mom is the American spelling.
Every speech by an MP is printed in Hansard, the official report of events in the Commons. And Ms Phillips, Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley , said Hansard’s writers sometimes remove her Brummie accent.
So when she sees that Hansard has reported her saying the word in the southern way, she insists that they change it back.
She told the BBC’s Daily Politics show: “I’ve had the same thing changed on two different occasions. Because I’m from Birmingham, and when I say the word mom, if I talk about my mom or if I talk about being a mom in the House of Commons, they always write it ‘mum’.
“And I am from Birmingham and we spell it ‘mom’.”
She added: “And it annoys me every time that they sort of try and sanitise my regional accent.”