Everyone’s got some kind of parental unit, so there’s gotta be some slang to talk about it. We’re talking about mommy and daddy in this episode and reviewing some of the fun names we can call them. We also review some of the standard names for these important people and the difference between using mom or mother. If you haven’t seen your old man lately, this episode will make you want to give him a call!
Expressions included in the learning materials:
- To get the hang of
- To get sidetracked
- A tight family
- Mum or Mum
- To be in town
- The slopes
- Come to think of it
- To get to it
- A hand
- Mama and ma
- s and old man
Maura: So let’s get to today’s episode, which is a Catchword episode and that is where we look at different slang or expressions and of course we explain them and give you examples of how you can use them.
Andrew: That’s right. And today’s theme is slang expressions for parents. So these are slang terms that you could use to call your parents.
Maura: Right. And before we get into all of that, I think it’s a good idea if we first review the common standard terms that you can use to talk about your parents. So for example, you talk about your parents by calling them mother and father, mom and dad, those kind of words that most people already know and hear often.
Andrew: Yeah. Exactly. So I call my parents just mom and dad.
Maura: Yeah. That is the usual most common way that you hear people talking about their parents or talking to their parents. You just say, mom or dad.
Andrew: Yup. Straightforward, but there are some other people who use different terms to address their parents. Some other popular ones are mother and father.
Maura: Right. They’re not quite as common as mom and dad. When I think about someone using mother and father to talk to their parents, I think that the family must be very rich or very formal. Actually, I think about how I see it used in movies, and often you might hear a kid call their mother or father, “Yes mother I need to get something to eat,” and it’s kind of a formal or rich kind of family.
Andrew: Yeah. I kinda think it has, it’s sort of snobby, it’s kinda upper class. When a child calls their parent, mother or father, especially like how you said, “Yes mother, yes father,” it sounds almost like they’re a brat.
Maura: Yeah. It also sounds cold, it doesn’t sound like the kid has a really close relationship with their mother and father, like maybe they were sent away to boarding school or something like that.
Andrew: Exactly. The relationship seems formal, it doesn’t sound like a tight, loving family.
Maura: Yeah. I agree. Another time when you might hear mother and father being used is when someone is talking about their parents, and it’s usually not kids but adults talking about their mother or father, they might say, “Oh my mother is coming to visit.” It’s something that people tend to do when they get a little bit older. They would still call their mom, “mom” to their face, but when they’re talking about her to other people, they might use “mother” instead.
Andrew: And in this context it seems more appropriate. It doesn’t seem snobby or distant. It still seems loving, but it’s just I guess when you’re aging you just use mother and father in that way to talk about them when they’re not around.
Maura: You know, speaking about aging, there’s also another common way to talk about your parents or talk to your parents and that is to say mummy and daddy. And that is something that only small children really use.
Andrew: Yeah. Mummy and daddy, or I think if you’re in the USA you would say mommy, is that true?
Maura: Maybe there is a slight difference with the accent. Yeah.
Andrew: Yeah. British people and Canadians tend to say mummy, that’s what I would say mummy.