I’ve been working on a historical fantasy novel (it’s fantasy but it takes place in a setting very much like 1830’s London.) As part of that, I’ve been looking for quick references to culture and technology, etc... to indicate the time period to the reader.
I’ve also been debating using British English vs American English. And so I started thinking about “Mum” vs “Mom.”
Anyway, I found an article that said the titles of “Mom” and “Mum” were not commonly used until the twentieth century:
https://writingexplained.org/mom-of-mum-difference
I did a little research on my own and found:
“Little Women” (1869) contains:
Pride and Prejudice (1813) contains:
I also briefly looked at “The Grapes of Wraith” (1939) and it uses mother as a noun and “Ma” as a title, with no references to “Mom” or “Mum”
And this is fine, I found it interesting but not strange. But the article indicates that “Mom” and “Mum” have increased in use by 10x between 1980 and 2010, which seems wrong to me.
It’s an academic issue to me, but do you find this to be accurate? Has the use of “mom” really increased tenfold since 1980?
I’ve also been debating using British English vs American English. And so I started thinking about “Mum” vs “Mom.”
Anyway, I found an article that said the titles of “Mom” and “Mum” were not commonly used until the twentieth century:
https://writingexplained.org/mom-of-mum-difference
I did a little research on my own and found:
“Little Women” (1869) contains:
- 424 uses of the word “Mother” used as both a noun and a title.
- 0 uses of “mom”
- 5 uses of “mum”
Pride and Prejudice (1813) contains:
- 137 uses of Mother, but it’s only used as a noun never as a title.
- 0 uses of “mom”
- 0 uses of “mum”
I also briefly looked at “The Grapes of Wraith” (1939) and it uses mother as a noun and “Ma” as a title, with no references to “Mom” or “Mum”
And this is fine, I found it interesting but not strange. But the article indicates that “Mom” and “Mum” have increased in use by 10x between 1980 and 2010, which seems wrong to me.
It’s an academic issue to me, but do you find this to be accurate? Has the use of “mom” really increased tenfold since 1980?