“Mamaw” and “Papaw” Instead of “Grandma” and “Grandpa”

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there, this is Kelly.

Hello, Kelly, where are you calling us from?

Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Welcome to the show. How can we help you?

Oh, I lived in Texas for about five years, and I’ve never heard anybody say grandma and grandpa in Texas. It was always mamma and papa, or papa. And I said to a couple people over the course of the five years that I lived there, well, what is the deal with mamma and papa or papa? They said, well, we don’t use grandma and grandpa. It makes us sound too old. So I thought, is that a Texas thing? Or is that all over the South that they say that? Or is it just Texas? I wasn’t sure.

Mamma and papa instead of grandma and grandpa.

Exactly. And they said that mamma and papa sounded younger than grandma and grandpa? Even though they mean the same thing?

Yeah, it means the same thing. But they just don’t say use grandma and grandpa there.

Interesting.

Yeah. We have, in all the different branches of my family and my wife’s family, I think there are a couple different sets of mamas and papaws, but there’s also a pawpaw and a peepaw and a meemaw and a mamaw.

Oh, my.

A whole variety. And there’s a grandma and grandpa, and there’s a mammy, there’s a grammy and a pop. And, you know, it’s the modern family.

And where is that?

Missouri and Iowa.

Oh, really? But I think you’ll find the, is it ma-ma that you’re saying?

Ma-ma.

Ma-ma.

Ma-ma.

Ma-ma.

Ma-ma for grandma.

Ma-ma.

It does exist in other parts of the country. Appalachia, common there. It’s not the kind of thing you’re likely to hear in the Northeast, but it’s not precisely regional, if that makes sense. It’s not very fixed in one area. It’s generally sprinkled throughout the country.

Really?

Yeah. Yeah, my grandparents were from, my mother’s parents were from Virginia, and my father’s parents were from North Carolina. And in Virginia, it was grandmother and grandfather. They were a little bit more formal. But then in North Carolina, I mean, you have to understand, my father’s mother was this tiny, wiry woman who gave birth to him in a log cabin at the foot of Sugarloaf Mountain in North Carolina. And several other kids, no midwife or anything like that.

And my memory of the word mamaw is that I went over there when I was very young, and I watched her eating a grapefruit, you know, half a grapefruit. She got down to the bottom of the fruit, and then she squeezed all the grapefruit juice out onto a little plate. And then in front of everybody, she just picked up the plate and slurped all the grapefruit juice off. And then she just looked around and said, just call me mamaw.

Oh, wow.

What?

And I had never heard anybody else called Mamaw, so I always thought Mamaw had to do with slurping grapefruit juice. So then I started doing it, you know? I’d be eating grapefruit with my little friends and slurp it up and say, just call me Mamaw.

Oh, my.

So all of which is to say, yes, it’s not just a Texas thing.

Yeah, it’s pretty widespread. The names for grandmas and grandpas in this country are many. There’s dozens, if not, I don’t know, maybe even hundreds. I don’t know, tons of these. And a lot of people, in my reading, a lot of people do give the excuse that you said or the reason. That’s not going to excuse. They give the same reason that you said, which is they’ve chose something else because in their mind, grandma or grandpa is their grandma or grandpa. And that just seems too old to them.

Right.

So it’s a, it’s a, it’s kind of like breaks the chain of generations. They don’t want to feel like their own grandparents. So some other special name for the role, though, is always chosen. The grandchildren almost never call them by their given name. There is some other special name chosen for that position of honor as the grandparent.

That’s interesting.

Kelly, what do you do in your family?

I call them grandma and grandpa.

On both sides? Or just the one side?

Well, it’s Yaya and Papu on the Greek side.

Oh, Yaya and Papu.

That’s nice. Well, Kelly, I think we’re going to have to get a bigger server for our email because I’m betting that we’re going to hear from a lot of people.

Oh, you’re putting the call out, are you?

Well.

What do you call your grandparents? I would love to know. Whether we do it or not, we’re going to hear. What do you call your grandparents and why? Send it to words@waywordradio.org or give us a call, 877-929-9673.

Thank you so much for calling, Kelly.

Thanks, Kelly.

Thank you.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.