Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

Do you say mum, mom, mam or ma

1468910

Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,681 ✭✭✭Standman


    Ye can take yer "mom"'s and yer "awesome"'s and fúck right off


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,800 ✭✭✭Aishae


    saw a young cousin post on their fb staus last night - awesum.
    spelt like that too - its like watching a language die:rolleyes:


  • Registered Users Posts: 361 ✭✭uriah


    Biggins wrote: »
    Who cares - at least you might have one to call that!
    Others might not be so lucky so appreciate it that you can!

    I can never understand the need to call one's mother and father by anything other than their names.

    Hate to hear a big man refer to a littly elderly woman as 'mammy'
    Hearing some parents call each other 'mammy' and 'daddy' makes me grind my teeth.

    But it's a free country.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,808 ✭✭✭Chris P. Bacon


    Aishae wrote: »
    saw a young cousin post on their fb staus last night - awesum.
    spelt like that too - its like watching a language die:rolleyes:

    Facebook status are unbelievable for spelling and such,people I know who are on computers still use text speak.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,732 ✭✭✭Toby Take a Bow


    I was having a conversation with a woman (from Kerry) who asked the very same question, except her ire was directed at 'mum', and she was asking what's wrong with mam/mom/ma. For her, 'mom' is normal, as she's Irish speaking and it sounds closest to the Kerry Irish. She was claiming 'mum' was the big evil generic name (this time coming from Britain).

    Point is, unless you changed how you addressed your 'mother' (except maybe from 'mammy') what you call her is what is natural to you.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 37,214 ✭✭✭✭Dudess


    I called my mother "mammy" when I was small, then it suddenly morphed to Mum... occasionally Mam in memory of the mammy days...


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,456 ✭✭✭✭Mr Benevolent


    I use mom.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 226 ✭✭alexjk


    Aishae wrote: »
    saw a young cousin post on their fb staus last night - awesum.
    spelt like that too - its like watching a language die:rolleyes:

    Or a language evolve. Spellings change over time as well as new words being created. If anything, it's a great sign that English is moving with the times.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 78,521 ✭✭✭✭Victor


    amdublin wrote: »
    What is with Irish people calling their mother MOM???
    I'd feel awfully confused if I called here "Dad".


  • Registered Users Posts: 11,692 ✭✭✭✭OPENROAD


    I use mum.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,861 ✭✭✭IrishEyes19


    I have always said Mam. Mammy when I 5 and under........and then Mam from there-on. I once came home from primary school aged six and hearing other kids using the word Mom, attempted it. But that didnt last more than one attempt and I was quickly converted back to mam again.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 572 ✭✭✭Chnandler Bong


    Ross from Friends: Mommy


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,861 ✭✭✭IrishEyes19


    Yeah i'd rather that^ than hearing irish people saying dude every 5 seconds. I think us irish are kind of cool in our own way, we don't need to mimic other cultures, we have plenty of our own culture.

    It just sounds so so sad in a i-wanna-be-a-weed smoking-baggy jean wearing-californian-surfer sort of way.

    Aww dude!

    ???fcuk off.

    Have to agree with this, if I hear the words epic, dude, man, awesome, one more time.......it's head wrecking. A lot of friends will also reply to messages with Hey CHICK. So annoying.

    Ive nothing against language progression either. But it's annoying to see our own linguistic characteristics being replaced with American English all the same. And thats not embracing pure Irish tradition. I just find it bizarre to hear people talking like that and frankly its irritating.


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,801 ✭✭✭✭Kojak


    Anyone here call their parents by their first name?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 572 ✭✭✭Chnandler Bong


    Kojak wrote: »
    Anyone here call their parents by their first name?
    Thats not right


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,073 ✭✭✭sam34


    Kojak wrote: »
    Anyone here call their parents by their first name?

    i do if i'm talking about them, eg to my siblings, but not when talking to them


  • Registered Users Posts: 750 ✭✭✭onlyrocknroll


    Confab wrote: »
    I use mom.

    That's mean. What do you use her for.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,729 ✭✭✭Acoshla


    Jeebus H Christ I hate these stupid threads. Where I'm from is near to a large Gaeltacht area in Kerry, every single person I knew growing up said Mom, because it comes from the Irish, Mamaí, a Mham, which has the same sound as the "o" in Mom. My friend who grew up in the Gaeltacht says Mom whether she's speaking English or Irish, and my dad and all his siblings call their 90 year old mother Mom since forever, and they didn't even have a tv never mind watch enough to know about American culture.

    Don't get me started on Mammy, my God, it just conjures images of Brenda Fricker beside a stove with a pot of tea.


  • Registered Users Posts: 329 ✭✭xaoifsx


    i say mom sometimes...but usually when im talking about other peoples mothers.. but i dont do it that often its just by accident!! i get given out to about it when i do!! but it is completely by accident!!


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 3,351 ✭✭✭Orando Broom


    hondasam wrote: »
    what's wrong with mom ?

    **** say Mom, to be fair. It's an Americanism. It shows the paucity of our culture when we have to ape a foreign country. Mum is also the preserve of the wanker. Their use shows further evidence of the deep seated self loathing we have for ourselves through the denial of Hiberno-English.

    In Ireland it's Mam or Mammy.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,880 ✭✭✭✭mfceiling


    I started the same thread before...you're bang on OP...there's no letter O in ma!!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 226 ✭✭alexjk


    You do realise you're talking about aping another culture while speaking in English?


  • Registered Users Posts: 750 ✭✭✭onlyrocknroll


    **** say Mom, to be fair. It's an Americanism. It shows the paucity of our culture when we have to ape a foreign country. Mum is also the preserve of the wanker. Their use shows further evidence of the deep seated self loathing we have for ourselves through the denial of Hiberno-English.

    In Ireland it's Mam or Mammy.

    Good God did you not read the post two up from yours where the poster from the Gaeltacht said that they use mom there because it sounds most similar to the Irish.

    I think it shows the paucity of the culture on the internet when people like you stupidly call others w**kers without even reading through the thread.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,351 ✭✭✭Orando Broom


    Good God did you not read the post two up from yours where the poster from the Gaeltacht said that they use mom there because it sounds most similar to the Irish.

    I think it shows the paucity of the culture on the internet when people like you stupidly call others w**kers without even reading through the thread.


    No need to read through it. Mom, is an Americanism, full stop.

    At any rate the people who use Mom are not doing so as a tribute to their Irish heritage and language. You know this and I know this. For you to say otherwise is ridiculous.


  • Registered Users Posts: 329 ✭✭xaoifsx


    At the end of the day its your decision what you call the woman who gave birth to you. It doesn't matter!
    Ireland's language is Irish and I see most the people talking English.

    :p


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 750 ✭✭✭onlyrocknroll


    No need to read through it. Mom, is an Americanism, full stop.

    At any rate the people who use Mom are not doing so as a tribute to their Irish heritage and language. You know this and I know this. For you to say otherwise is ridiculous.

    You're being ridiculous.

    Spadina said that growing up in a
    Gaeltacht area in Kerry, every single person I knew growing up said Mom, because it comes from the Irish, Mamaí, a Mham, which has the same sound as the "o" in Mom

    He/she also said
    my dad and all his siblings call their 90 year old mother Mom since forever, and they didn't even have a tv never mind watch enough to know about American culture.

    This surely discounts that the use of Mom is an Americanism, unless you're calling Spadina a lier.

    Nobody said anything about "paying tribute" to the Irish language, rather it's just the nearest phonetic equivalent.

    Also using an Americanism is not a sign of the paucity of our culture or self loathing. Like all English speakers I use expressions derived from many languages everyday, as well as Irish idioms.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,729 ✭✭✭Acoshla


    No need to read through it. Mom, is an Americanism, full stop.

    At any rate the people who use Mom are not doing so as a tribute to their Irish heritage and language. You know this and I know this. For you to say otherwise is ridiculous.

    Honestly, my 52 year old mother called her mother Mom since she could speak, because it was what my grandmother called her mother, same with my Dad's side, and this is in a very tiny village on the tip of the Kerry Peninsula, some of my relatives who say it still don't have a tv, never mind back in the 60's/70's etc. How are you suggesting it is an Americanism when I'm saying that my family and others around us have said this word for more than 50/60 years?

    The word Mom is actually written on the back of photos in my Grandad's house that go back to the 1940's.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,351 ✭✭✭Orando Broom


    Spadina wrote: »
    Honestly, my 52 year old mother called her mother Mom since she could speak, because it was what my grandmother called her mother, same with my Dad's side, and this is in a very tiny village on the tip of the Kerry Peninsula, some of my relatives who say it still don't have a tv, never mind back in the 60's/70's etc. How are you suggesting it is an Americanism when I'm saying that my family and others around us have said this word for more than 50/60 years?

    The word Mom is actually written on the back of photos in my Grandad's house that go back to the 1940's.

    How does your subjective experience translate back to the entire u.21 population of South County Dublin and beyond in relation to using the word mom?

    It is an Americanism. Are you denying this?

    It appears that you are engaging in revisionist horse manure that is saying that the Irish invented Mom?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,488 ✭✭✭kingtut


    amdublin wrote: »
    What's wrong with mother/mam/mammy/ma like we used to always say??

    Mammy/Mam ? :D You're from Dublin right :pac:


  • Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 7,439 Mod ✭✭✭✭XxMCRxBabyxX


    How does your subjective experience translate back to the entire u.21 population of South County Dublin and beyond in relation to using the word mom?

    It is an Americanism. Are you denying this?

    It appears that you are engaging in revisionist horse manure that is saying that the Irish invented Mom?

    Because if you had read the rest of the thread you would know that she's not the only one to have had that kind of experience. From the impressions of the posters on this thread the phrase has been around for years, before the Americanisation of Ireland.

    You say anyone who calls their mother mom is a wanker. I grew up in Africa and must have learned "mom" over there, it was something that I was later bullied about in secondary school. Does that make me a wanker?


  • Advertisement
  • Site Banned Posts: 328 ✭✭michelledoh


    If you think the whole "Mom" thinkg is bad you should hear my younger sister. This may seem cliched but she litterally says "oh my god, what everrr, totally..." and the customary "like..." between every second word!

    At least she admits its because she watches to much TV (we all say telly in our house but her) and american movies!


  • Registered Users Posts: 750 ✭✭✭onlyrocknroll


    My God!
    How does your subjective experience translate back to the entire u.21 population of South County Dublin and beyond in relation to using the word mom?

    It's not 'subjective' if there's actual written evidence! :confused: I have no idea what you mean here unless you don't understand what 'subjective' means.
    It appears that you are engaging in revisionist horse manure

    Using evidence is revisionism, and therefore horse manure? Also why can't you argue civilly?
    ...saying that the Irish invented Mom?

    No one has said this.
    It is an Americanism. Are you denying this?

    Conclusively disproving would be more accurate.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,549 ✭✭✭✭cowzerp


    BraziliaNZ wrote: »
    What, I say Mam, that's normal isn't it? Everyone I know around here says it, Northside Dublin that is. If you go down a couple of pay scales it's Ma, we add on the extra M because we get paid more.

    Very good!
    Mam would be used when saying my mam, but when calling it's Ma! drives her mad but thats how it is, Mum is just poshies or wannabe poshies/Yanks
    Mammy is just for kids or weirdos.

    Rush Boxing club and Rush Martial Arts head coach.



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,679 ✭✭✭Freddie59


    amdublin wrote: »
    What's wrong with mam?

    Not posh enough I'd say. Almost a stigma attached to Mam/Mammy (which our children use and which we used with our parents - no problem with it). Where it's nuts is when you see someone who's called their mother Mam/Mammy for years; then marries someone who wants to call the children Mum (which i dislike). To hear that person saying 'go to Mum/Mummy' is as alien a thing as you'll ever hear!:D

    Snobbery's alive and well in Ireland apparently.:rolleyes:


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 27,663 Mod ✭✭✭✭Posy


    I say 'mam' or 'my mother' if I'm talking about her.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,349 ✭✭✭✭starlit


    Does it really matter? It means the same thing which ever way people call their mother! I usually call mine Mam or Mom sometimes mother. I don't like 'Mum' that much find it a bit posh and 'Ma' is a bit hard-nosed really. 'Mammy' well a bit too mammyish. Everyone is different, everyone has their own way of calling their Mother what ever they and their mother feel comfortable with saying, no business of anyone elses.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 34,788 ✭✭✭✭krudler


    grown adults calling their parents mammy and daddy is a bit odd tbh


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,351 ✭✭✭Orando Broom


    My God!



    It's not 'subjective' if there's actual written evidence! :confused: I have no idea what you mean here unless you don't understand what 'subjective' means.



    Using evidence is revisionism, and therefore horse manure? Also why can't you argue civilly?



    No one has said this.



    Conclusively disproving would be more accurate.


    One person's experience proves the rule, is that what you are arguing?


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,273 ✭✭✭flas


    because a lot of irish people think that mam or ma or mammy is common and too "irish" so insist on copying what they see on tv or in films!


  • Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 7,439 Mod ✭✭✭✭XxMCRxBabyxX


    One person's experience proves the rule, is that what you are arguing?

    You've ignored my point completely so.
    This thread has shown that it's more than just one person's experience


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18,163 ✭✭✭✭Liam Byrne


    yawha wrote: »
    Some of us aren't fúcking boggers/scummers.

    How does who you're sleeping with have a bearing on what you call your mam ?

    [ clink ]

    Oooooooooohhhhhh! :eek:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18,163 ✭✭✭✭Liam Byrne


    Spadina wrote: »
    Jeebus H Christ I hate these stupid threads. Where I'm from is near to a large Gaeltacht area in Kerry, every single person I knew growing up said Mom, because it comes from the Irish, Mamaí, a Mham, which has the same sound as the "o" in Mom. My friend who grew up in the Gaeltacht says Mom whether she's speaking English or Irish, and my dad and all his siblings call their 90 year old mother Mom since forever, and they didn't even have a tv never mind watch enough to know about American culture.

    Don't get me started on Mammy, my God, it just conjures images of Brenda Fricker beside a stove with a pot of tea.

    But isn't "a Mhamaí" pronounced "Wommy" ?

    That's nothing like English unless you're David Norris or Jonathan Ross.....


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,537 ✭✭✭joseph brand


    Mom is D4, very D4.

    I say Mam.

    I rule.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,910 ✭✭✭OneArt


    I say mom because that's what people say in South Africa. It's only when we moved to Ireland did I hear about this 'mam' malarky.

    Then I again in recent years I've been using mam instead...


  • Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 7,439 Mod ✭✭✭✭XxMCRxBabyxX


    OneArt wrote: »
    I say mom because that's what people say in South Africa. It's only when we moved to Ireland did I hear about this 'mam' malarky.

    Then I again in recent years I've been using mam instead...

    That's where I picked it up as well!
    My mother would kill me if if I called her mam though!


  • Registered Users Posts: 750 ✭✭✭onlyrocknroll


    You've ignored my point completely so.
    This thread has shown that it's more than just one person's experience

    Remember that he acknowledged not reading the thread earlier though
    No need to read through it. Mom, is an Americanism, full stop.

    Yet he still confidently claims it's only "one person's experience".


  • Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 7,439 Mod ✭✭✭✭XxMCRxBabyxX


    Remember that he acknowledged not reading the thread earlier though



    Yet he still confidently claims it's only "one person's experience".

    You would think that'd he'd read the replies aimed at him though!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,127 ✭✭✭DeadMoney


    I've called my Mother Mom all my life and so have my brothers. And as for sounding 'American' or what ever, good! The less Irish I sound the better imo, bloody backwards country :p


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,029 ✭✭✭PinkFly


    cuz wer so like omg turning into the Americans like :rolleyes:


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,485 ✭✭✭Mr. K


    I've always said Mum...people think I'm a bit posh though, I dunno why. Do they think they I'm posh because I say Mum or I do say Mum because people think I'm posh?!


Advertisement