Why do so many people in England use mom/mommy when we're not in the US?!

[Foreverblowingbubbles18]

Just gets my goat that this seems to be happening more and more. Its MUM or MUMMY!!!

Take your goat and piss off

I don’t know anyone who uses mom/mommy? Some of my northern friends use mam

I'm originally from Birmingham and it's always been mom/mommy. Absolutely nothing at all to do with the US.

@mishmash13
brumshaming
Defo Brummie /Midlands thing to say mom/mommy
Not something copied from Americans

Oh wow, turns out we're not all from a 5 mile radius of your house OP! This must be a shock. Hope you come to terms with it soon.

Do you think MN should get some sort of alert system before people make themselves sound so silly in an OP ?
Particularly in a thread that is posted regularly ?

What an ignorant post! I am a Brummie and it's MOM.

Mam, mammy or mi ma' up here in Newcastle

I hate it when people say "gets my goat". I'm cringing

There are over 300 languages spoken in England and I really don't think some angry goat-weilding random on Mumsnet has the authority to decide what people call their mothers. How do you plan to police this, are you and your goat going to travel the length and breadth of England around schools and drop-in centres educating everyone in your preferred way of addressing mothers?

Mammy is racist... Huh?

Erm how is Mammy racist?!

@LaMarschallin

I used to call my Welsh grandmother "Mam", short for "Mam-gu", which is Welsh for "Granny". Otherwise in the family it's generally "Mummy" or "Mother" (usually men addressing their mothers who don't feel right using "Mummy". Unlike prince Charles).

I was surprised when I came to the Midlands and heard "Mom/my". Like the OP I initially thought it sounded American, but quickly realised it's a local thing that goes back generations.

What I don't get is the reasoning of some local colleagues/friends who have grandchildren and insist on being called "Nanny" or "Nana" (mostly preferring "Na-NAR", 2nd syllable heavily stressed because it "sounds better/posher"), because "Granny/Grandma" sound old. Apparently so does "Nan", according to a couple.
I mean, "Nanny/Nana" is hardly an uncrackable code for "I'm old enough to have grandchildren".

Sorry - wandering away from the point of the thread.

My Nan /Nanny said she never wanted to be called that. Well we did.

This is raised so often on here. I don't get the hate for Americanisms anyway, but this is not one of them.

Black country here - MOM, always has been.

Mammy is racist

Mammy isn't racist in the UK,.
It has nothing to do with race in the UK where it is an expression used within a geographical area, nothing more.

OP have you got the story? it is not Mum or Mummy across the country. It may be how you spell it but that doesn't make you right!

Leaannb

Can you explain why you have said it's racist (and I suppose the poster you picked out to say that to probably is a bit miffed).

A mammy, also spelled mammie, is a U.S. stereotype, especially in the South, for a black woman who worked in a white family and nursed the family's children. The mammy figure is rooted in the history of slavery in the United States.

This is one meaning of the word in the USA.

@Leeaannb - Mam us the Welsh word for mother. Children often use Mammy when addressing or talking about their mothers in Wales and in other parts of the UK. I'm aware that it is a horribly racist cariciture in America but please do have the awareness to recognise that this Welsh word is not racist in the UK.

The pp who said it was racist is probably thinking of the US stereotype of black women in the south nursing a wealthy white family's children. It doesn't apply in the UK, it's been used in the UK in some regions for centuries to mean mother.

My kids call me mama or ma, hope that doesn't upset you too much 😁

It's also commonly used in certain parts of the UK and I think Ireland as well.

So I want to understand why that poster made such a brief and un-nuanced post.

If it's the case that they're from USA and don't understand that they are not the whole world, that will be annoying. Like the 'thug' stuff on another thread recently.

My friends in Birmingham use Mom.

I'm in the North East and I use Mam.

It's probably only been 'Mom' in the USA for about 100 years or so*. Before that it was Mother, Ma, Mama etc. Momma was more of a Southern states accent which I assume over time evolved into Mom.
*That's the 1920s remember !!

Mammy might be racist in the US because of the history behind it but that doesn't automatically apply everywhere else. Unless saying "I bought a pack of fags earlier" is homophobic now?

Mom is used in Ireland a lot. I've heard it's because the Irish word for mum is Mamaí - pronounced mommy. I'd imagine places like Liverpool which historically had a lot of Irish immigration might be the same?

Omg! This again!! Sweet Jesus. How many threads do we need on this?

Not everyone speaks the same way. Get over it.