Attention, Canadians on my Friends list!

[annathepiper]

In your experience, would a young man raised in Newfoundland (though feel free to broaden this question out to Nova Scotia, PEI, or New Brunswick if appropriate) call his mother "Mum", "Mom", "Mother", or something else entirely? This is one of the details I need to get right for Christopher in Faerie Blood. Insights welcome!

Comments

[king-chiron.livejournal.com]

Oh, I have a Canadian friend born and raised in Newfoundland (in fact she's never left the island in her life), I'll ask her
what her and her brothers call their Mother.

[annathepiper]

That'd be excellent, thanks!

[wildcardgal.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I grew up in a town full of Newfies. (Newfoundlanders) Mom or Mum is more likely than "Mother".

[annathepiper]

Thank you kindly. Hrmm. Hrmm. Since my character is technically only half Newfoundlander--with an American parent, but raised in Newfoundland--it's certainly plausible that he could have heard or used both. I shall mull this! :)

[hippybngstockng.livejournal.com]

I also have a friend in town who is from that area- I could have sworn I've heard him refer to his "mum" but I could also check if you still need the info!

[annathepiper]

Please do! I'd be interested to see if there is a range of answers. :)

[scrunchions.livejournal.com]

I will do a quick survey at work today and ask guys around me. I should tell you my result tonight.

[annathepiper]

Thank you kindly!

[scrunchions.livejournal.com]

The younger crowd (early 20's) say Mom, especially when they are from St-John's or close to...

The older crowd (late 20's and up) will say Mum, the further they are from St-John's, the thicker the accent...

[annathepiper]

Hrmm.

Christopher is early 30's, from St. John's. And he comes from a family where home and tradition are specifically big things. This may argue in favor of him being inclined to say "Mum". :)

[avalonmissy.livejournal.com]

I'm not a guy, nor was I raised in Newfoundland, though my parents were. I am an Atlantic Canadian though. Either way I call my mother "Mum" but ususally write it as "Mom".

[annathepiper]

*grins* Hey, close enough for me! Thank you kindly for checking in. :)

[brightbeak.livejournal.com]

my nephews vary... (and grew up in various parts of NS & NB to moms born in NB)

mum is the pronounciation used, mom is the spelling used, and MOTHER is usually yelled when a sibling has done something wrong & you are tattling, OR said mother has just embarassed the living SHIT out of said offspring!

bb

[annathepiper]

Thanks hon! It sounds like I can probably have Christopher stick with "Mom", then, it'd just come out of him "Mum". But since we're talking about dialogue here--I wonder if I should spell it Mum anyway because that's what my heroine would hear.

[brightbeak.livejournal.com]

wouldn't that depend on how you portray other dialectical variances? b/c if you write the phonetic dialect it's 'mum' but if you write the actual words spoken, and lave the dialectical rendering to the reader, it's 'mom'

i know in some places i've never been so bogged as i have while reading dialectical phonetics whereas my imagination can supply the correct dialectical sound, even when i hear it spelled correctly and just having dialectical indicators as my adverbs...

bb

[annathepiper]

I've been very light with portraying Christopher's accent--mostly only having him drop g's and occasionally having him drop h's out of words that start with "th". This is mostly due to wanting to try to portray the flavor of his accent while not making him totally unreadable. :) There is a fine balance that a writer has to strike with a character with an accent--you want to convey something of how the accent sounds, but if you make the reader have to slog through a lot of dialect, that's a damned good way to piss off a reader. (See comments on my LJ elsewhere under the post about The Jewel and the Sword.)

I drop comments into the narrative in a couple of places that talk about his accent getting thicker when he's upset, and using words like "rolling" and "lilting" to describe it when my heroine notices how he talks. And I had her notice that he pronounces "Newfoundland" with the accent on the last syllable (as I observed being done by the lovely and talented Mr. Hallett on the Great Big DVD; Christopher was raised in St. John's, so I figure hearkening unto Bob is a good thing here; of course, hearkening unto Bob is a fine thing regardless ;) ).

But mostly, I'm trying to focus on making sure that Christopher's word choices are right. E.g., Mom vs. Mum. It'd be like trying to make sure that a British character would say "boot" instead of "trunk" to talk about the storage space in the back of a car. :)

[brightbeak.livejournal.com]

ok, i see where you've gone w/ this...
yeah, it's a VERY fine line...
i know that i've read pro books that have bogged me SO badly that i average 1 page every 10-15 minutes instead of 6-7 pages every 5 minutes... the dialect was SO different from what i'd ever heard, and whatnot, that i had to literally sound out every word and try the pronounciation on 'for size' to see what word it could possibly be if it weren't so mangled! it very much detracted from the process of reading, and hauled me out of my 'suspension of disbelief' moments that i need to really lose myself into a book & it's setting.
*nods* thinking you might be lucking out and striking a balance that could very well work :)
bb

[annathepiper]

Glad to hear you think it works! Here's hoping other readers (and editors) do as well!

I plan to resume working on the book now that I'm actually at Worldcon. Go fig. But I lost a lot of editing time due to the wacky server madness this past week. But the beauty of mobile computing is, I can edit a book while I'm attending a panel.

Speaking of which, it's time for the next one! *zooms off to the panel about 'Where Do Elves Come From?'*

[brightbeak.livejournal.com]

"you see, when two elves love each other very much......"

sorry, you left me NO option but to go there..... :) :)

bb

[annathepiper]

*chortle* My answer to this question was "Fresno"! ;) solarbird's reply to that was, "No, no, people call elves to help them get OUT of Fresno."

[king-chiron.livejournal.com]

OK, I asked Manda. She said for people her age (early-mid 20s) she most commonly hears "Mom", but she says "though when we say it, it sounds like maowm."

Hope that helps!

[annathepiper]

Thanks for relaying the question!

Hrmm. My character's in his early thirties, but five-ten years could be enough to make a possible difference. ;) Interesting that Manda relays a different pronunciation than what brightbeak mentioned, but this could also be a factor of different accents in Newfoundland!

[rmd.livejournal.com]

my maternal grandparents were newfies who immigrated to the US, and everyone in my generation grew up calling their mothers "Ma".

I'm not sure what my mother's generation called her parents, tho.

[annathepiper]

Oh cool, I had no idea you had an actual connection to the Tropical Isle. ^_^ Nifty!

Hrmm. Hrmm. It's starting to look like I have a couple of options here, including leaving the one or two relevant lines of Christopher's dialogue as they are (right now in the text, he refers to his mother as 'Mom').

Thanks for chiming in, hon!

[rmd.livejournal.com]

oh yeah. my grandfather came from LaManch and my grandmother came from nearby. i think it's down by admiralty cove.

and they both had that thick thick newfie accent.

[annathepiper]

One of a few accents, I'm given to understand! Apparently the Newfoundland accent does vary, depending on what part of the island you're from--you can even kind of tell if you listen to the interview-y bits on the Great Big DVD. Folks from St. John's sound different than folks from more rural parts of the island (as shown by the lovely and talented Mr. Bob Hallett, when compared to the lovely and talented Mr. Alan Doyle). ^_^

Ahem. Er. Not that I watch the DVD obsessively or anything!

Okay, well, maybe just the concert part... ^_^