Wordwatch: Mum’s the word
“Mum” is one of the commonest words in the language, and it embodies a wide range of meanings — quite apart from its quite separate sense of “silent”, with the word derived from it, “mummery” or “dumb-show”. No, I mean the term we all use to address or refer to a female parent, whether our own or someone else’s.
We all know what Philip Larkin said about our mum and dad. He had to use those two monosyllables for the sake of the rhyme, of course. But he clearly wanted to use the commonest, most familiar words available to him. And I would guess that “Mum” is used by almost everyone now when their own mother is in question. There has been a universal narrowing of vocabulary in this context, almost as though there had been an inexorable external influence compelling us all to abandon our traditionally preferred terms in order to conform to a new egalitarian norm.
The press, and the media generally, have adopted the conveniently brief “Mum” for “mother” in every possible context, not only in headlines. This usage has had the effect, in my ears, of making everyone seem working class since the word came into existence as a simplification of “Ma’am”, a deferential form of “Madam”, used from the late nineteenth century by shop assistants and domestic servants. For a long time, “Mum” has been the popular way, not necessarily working-class at all, of referring to, or addressing, any mother. The royal princes, I believe, call their mothers “mum” quite unselfconsciously. The word is used in preference to “mummy”, which has begun to seem precious, or to “mamma”, long out of date though sometimes used in a sense of deliberate self-parody by the middle classes.
On the BBC, “mamma” and “papa” sometimes occur in 19th century dramas, where (if the producer and actors don’t know any better) the wretched words are given an American stress on the first syllable, rather than the traditional English strong emphasis on the second. This transports the action to a completely unsuitable and irrelevant place, destroying the cultural characteristics of the work being performed. I recently heard someone, playing Gwendolen Fairfax in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), address her mother Lady Bracknell (“A handbag?”) as “Momma”, by dint of placing the emphasis on the first, as opposed to the last syllable. What’s interesting is that the older pronunciation of “mamma” and “papa” seems not only to have fallen out of use but to have been forgotten altogether. As usual, I blame the influence of American pronunciation, which indeed is evident enough in this case.
It’s much to be regretted that the nuances of these different forms are being elided and the potential for subtle social distinctions, let alone the forms and usage of different historical periods, are being lost to us. I’m not advocating a return to class-conscious distinctions, but I’d love to see a revival of different forms and styles reflecting different people’s ways of life.
When the Queen Mother was still alive the press loved to call her the “Queen Mum”, partly because this was conveniently shorter, and partly because the familiarity brought a popular but possibly rather remote public figure into the cosy family circle that newspapers and television love to persuade us we all belong to. But variety contributes to what Dr Johnson called the gaiety of nations. Vive la différence! say I.