Most English speakers I have met seem to call their grandparents by some familiar nickname such as Grandma, Grandpa, and so on. But I have some relatives who call their grandparents Grandmother and Grandfather, like this:
“Merry Christmas, Grandmother!”
or
“Tell Grandfather about your new job.”
These are Eastern American middle-class WASPs, by the way. I think it’s cute, but I don’t know why they do it. The grandparents in question, whom I call Uncle _____ and Aunt _____, are wonderful people and everyone likes them, so this is not an expression of coldness or unfriendliness.
What do you think of this? Would this usage seem odd to you?
Well, it’s what I called my mother’s parents–I just did so in French. I would think that choice of such names would reflect more on the parents and grandparents than the child
I call my grandmother “Grandmother”, because she prefers it. Her children call her “Mother” for the most part, though they will sometimes call her “Mom” to each other. I think I called her “Grandma” when I was little because that’s what I called my other grandmother and I didn’t realize she had a preference. I have no idea why we she prefers this, except perhaps that she is not particularly maternal (despite having 12 children)–she’s more imperious. She was born to a middle-class family in Tulsa, OK in the 20s and lived for 20-odd years in Ohio as a young wife/mother, if we are looking to find regionalisms.
I think it’s cute. Every family is different. In my family my grandfather has a first and a second wife, both of which carried his last name at the time of my birth. So I address my grandmothers as Grandma M and Grandma B, respectively (using full first names.) Of course when I’m just with them one-on-one it’s Grandma.
I think it sounds awfully cold myself but whatever works for each family. Growing up (and still) I only knew my grandma on my mom’s side so I never really had to worry about differentiating between grammas and grampas. But now that all us kids have kids, my mom and dad are “Gramma and Papa”. When this first started I found it a little odd since we’d never really used that before and I hadn’t even heard of people calling a grandfather “Papa” but it works out.
My father’s parents were always Grandmother and Grandfather to me. I asked my older sister if that was the way it had always been, and why. She answered that it was always just understood that those were the names we were supposed to use.
The odd thing is, my father called his parents Mama and Puppa.
My maternal grandmother is Grandmother. She decided that that’s what we grandchildren would call her, and she will gladly correct anyone who refers to her as our grandma. In fact, I can’t think of her as Grandma. My maternal grandfather was Grandfather at her request, although he would have preferred Zayde.
The sprog has three sets of grandparents. All three grandfathers are Grandpa Firstname. My mother is Bubbe, Airman’s mother is Grandma and his stepmother is Grandbear.
My grandmothers (one is, one was ) were Grandma Lastname. So was my mother’s maternal grandmother.
But her paternal grandmother was known as Grandmother, including by us great-grandkids. She just wasn’t a “Grandma” and if I’d ever called her “Great-Grandmother” I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale. That would have made her seem old, you see. Never mind that she was genuinely old for the last 25 or so years of her life; she lived to be 102.
She was In Charge. The family matriarch. When my mom accuses me of being like her I take it as a high compliment. I certainly know where my stubborn streak came from.
I call my grandmother “Grandmother.” That’s how she refers to herself and how we refer to her. We’ve never called her anything but “Grandmother.” It would never have occured for me to do so.
I called my grandfather Grandfather, but my grandmother was Grandma. Drove one of my aunts crazy; she always insisted it had to be Grandma and Grandpa or Grandmother and Grandfather, and insisted her kids do the former. Not sure how we ended up with the mixed set, but I blame my cousins who were born first and gave them their names.
I never really gave any thought to the Grandfather thing until other people pointed it out. Stuffy, uptight, WASPy, reserved, standoffish - these are words I would never, ever associate with Grandfather. He was a beer drinking, football loving, warm, easygoing guy who never assumed an air or a grace in his life.
I never knew either of my grandfathers, and I call both my grandmothers “Gramma”. Not Grandma. My kids call my mother “Gramma” and her mother is “Greatest Gramma”
My grandparents were “Grandmere” and “Grandpere” when I was a kid.
My niece calls my dad “Grandfather” or “Boompa”. I remember when my son first started reading, he got on a “grandfather/grandmother” kick because that’s how they were referred to in his reader.
My sister and I call my grandmother, Grandmother. She wants it that way, my mother also calls her Mother. It is kind of a running joke in our family… " I dare you to call her Granny!"
When my wife and I first got married, and her kids were still pretty small, they used to call their grandmothers “grandma ___”, where ___ was the grandmother’s dog’s name! (Although I’m not sure if they called their grandmothers that to their face, or if that’s just how they referred to them among themselves.)
Gramma and Grampa here. Although, when I’m feeling frisky and spry, I might work up the nerve to call her Granny. She could probably take me in a fair fight, assuming she’d fight fair.
My MIL married an Indian and she wants my daughter to call her by the Indian name for Grandmother, whatever that is. I use Gramma FirstName with both of them in relation to my daughter.
) were Grandma Lastname. So was my mother’s maternal grandmother.