Regional American Dialect for 'mother'

[threnodyjones]

I have googled, I have searched my liguistic books and grammar references, and I can't find the soda/pop/cola/soda-pop graphic equivalent of a picture I saw about 8-10 years ago of the same American regional divide for use of mom/ma/mother/mommy/mammy/mamma

Comments

[nightrose83]

On the current-day East Coast, I've commonly heard 'Mom,' or 'Mommy' depending on the speaker's age (I'm from New Jersey). 'Ma' is also heard from time to time. I have a friend who was born in the 60s from Manhattan, and her mother is 'Mommy.'

[thistle_chaser]

Seconding. Mom or Mommy (varying by age) for New York-ish area.

[marycatelli]

Also in my family. It's the thing that there is no set point of demarcation, you may just drift on using the term even if it's deemed childish.

A point I deduced in my teens when my mother called my grandmother "Mommy."

[xianghua]

Only a single sample, but a friend fits that description for NM and her mom has always been Mom. :P

[met_amphetamine]

My mother, born and raised in New Mexico from 1956, refers to her mother as Mom the rare times I hear her talk about her (usually she says Gramma when she's around me or my brother, though, probably to not confuse us? But I think it's cute to hear her talk about her mom). She was middle-to-upper class (lived in the NE Heights and North Valley, had horses, her dad owned a pharmacy on Central, went to UNM).

My father was also born and raised in New Mexico in the same time period, but he wasn't on good terms with his mother, so I don't know what he called her. He always just referred to her when speaking about her as Eunice. He was working-class-to-poor (lived in Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Bernalillo, Pena Blanca, etc).

I hope this helps!

[laetificat]

I grew up in upstate New York in a middle-class town in the '80s. We called our mother "mommy" until middle school, after which she was "Mom." It's very similar now.