The history of "Mom," "Mum," and "Mother."

JohnLine

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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:

  • 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?
 

frimble3

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I think there are regional differences, too. When I was a kid (60's small town) the standard was 'mummy', with 'mommy' was seen as a sort of American television, or, as one mother said "Trying to sound 'fancy'".
I think 'mum' and 'mom' has become more prevalent since then, but I never really paid attention because, well, I was older. I was more accustomed to the long form: "Muuuum!"
I think that now 'mommy/mummy' is more a thing for younger children, while the short form indicates a more grown up attitude.

I've always thought of 'mamma' and 'mama' as either old-fashioned or rural, or sometime both. And 'mamma', with an accent over the second 'a' is French or fancy English.
 

JohnLine

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Have you looked at mama, mamma and mummy (although the last one might get a lot of false positives)?
Thanks for the link! it was very pertinent.
Okay, I just looked at "Hamlet" and "Romeo and Juliet." And in "Hamlet"(1609), Hamlet uses mother as a title e.g. "Now, mother, what's the matter?" and "Mother, you have my father much Offended."
So that makes my brain significantly less broken. But I couldn't find reference to any shortened or familiar versions.

And thanks for the suggestion on "mamma" I found its etymology enlightening:

https://www.etymonline.com/word/mamma

Also, before the great vowel shift, I think "Mama" would be pronounced "Moma."(can anyone confirm?) Well, I seem to have gone off on a bit of a tangent on this, but it's an interesting one.
 

Bacchus

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do you find this to be accurate? Has the use of “mom” really increased tenfold since 1980?

Google usage charts would indicate a surge in use of "mom" starting around 1970s, more like twenty to thirty-fold

Google linky
 

angeliz2k

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Yes, "mom" and "mum" are definitely relatively new. I'll note that the Anne of Green Gables books, written at various times as late as the 30's and spanning from the 1880s to the 1910s, do, if I recall, use "mum". However, it was young-ish children doing so--kids using slang and being informal. That's another issue here. Some kids would be raised to call their parents Mother and Father, if not "ma'am" and "sir." Some kids would be free to use mom and mommy and mumsy and dad and daddy. A certain clique might use the more refined sounding mamma (like the French pronunciation).

My parents, raised in the '50's, invariably use "mom" and "dad" when talking about their parents. I, of course, do the same, as seems to be almost universal today in the US. I think a lot of Americans are aware of "mum" being used in the UK, but none of us would use it any more than we would use the word "rubbish".

frimble, what's funny/ironic is that to me "mum" sounds fancy, probably because it's British. And to Americans, British=fancy, lol.
 

benbenberi

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"Mom" and "Mum" may be relatively recent as far as their appearance in print -- but "mama" and "papa" are the oldest words in the language, and virtual universal across all human languages. So I guarantee that words like mama and its variants (e.g. ma, momma, mommy/mummy, mom/mum) have been used within the homes of English-speaking children for as long as children have spoken English.

Bear in mind, we have not quite zero, but very few glimpses of how real people actual talked with each other within the home, as opposed to literary representations, before the late 19c.

The apparent recent upsurge of "mom" in documentation is, I suspect, a reflection of how people increasingly use casual language in public and in writing, and the distinction between formal and informal modes has been largely obliterated. People freely use in public terms like "mom" that were once reserved for the intimate family. And also people continue to use as adults the terms that were once reserved for children. There's still frequently a transition from "mommy/mummy" to "mom/mum" when a small child wants to be more grown up -- but it freezes there and people don't feel the need to adopt anything more formal to assert they are actually adults now.
 

Alessandra Kelley

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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?

It makes sense to me. "Mother" and "father" feel a bit stiff, formal, and old-fashioned. It seems to me more and more people are using the words "mom" and "dad" instead, even in journalism.
 

Siri Kirpal

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Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

My mother was born in 1928. She always referred to her mother as Mother and her father as Daddy. When I asked her if that's the way it was when she was a child, she thought a moment and said, "Yes, I think it was."

I actually met a woman who objected to her grandchildren calling her Grandma. She wanted Grandmama. They called her by her initials CC.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

gothicangel

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Don't forget its a class thing too. Upper/middle classes will us 'mother' where working classes would use 'mum'. To complicate it even further, if your characters had origins in northern England, Scotland or Ireland, they will use 'mam.' Which is possibly conserved from or influences by earlier Brythonic languages?


 

anaemic_mind

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To complicate it further, there's also a regional difference in the UK, which as a Southerner I wasn't aware of until I met my Midlands-born other half who calls his mother 'Mom'
 

Fallen

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To complicate it further, there's also a regional difference in the UK, which as a Southerner I wasn't aware of until I met my Midlands-born other half who calls his mother 'Mom'

Yeah, pretty much this as far as the West Mids goes, and some of the other counties too: Staffordshire etc. I don't use 'mum', but mom. Mum and mummy are considered... soft and too upper class. Just sounds odd on the ear too. We've been using it since the Great Vowel shift.
 
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