I would refer to my sister as ‘My sister’ to my Uncle and he got annoyed saying, “I know your sister.”, but it wasn’t a disrespect thing. My Uncle is odd.
We got this. In Australia. Complete with “She’s the cat’s grandmother”, which is somehow even odder than the cat’s mother. It wasn’t exclusively for if one referred to one’s mother as ‘she’, but generally any adult woman, like teacher, or girl guide pack leader or such.
WTF?
I have never heard of this before. Ever.
Gosh, things sure are different here in the upper Midwest…
How odd. I never experienced this. Those of you who did, did you get rebuked for something like the following:
“Do you know where your mother is?”
“Yeah, she went to the store.”
If not, I imagine it’s a partially-respect and partially-grammar thing. If so, then…I got nothing, because that’s just loony.
I can kind of imagine it if one were speaking of the Queen or something.
“Where is the Queen?” / “Um, yeah, she’s in the parlor.” / “Philistine! You say Her Majesty is in the parlor!”
My dad was the same way. As long as I established at the beginning that I was talking about my mom and used the correct pronoun (“Mom wants to know…” “Mom said this…” "Mom told me it was okay…), then I could call her “she” as long it was in proper context. (“Mom says Joe is on the phone. She wants to know if you’re too busy to talk to him now.”) It wasn’t considered disrespect by my dad if I properly acknowledged her at the beginning of the conversation and as long as I wasn’t trying to set one parent against the other.
I remember hearing this too–grew up in California, mid-60s through 80s. Don’t remember the context, but I was definitely told that it was impolite to call your mother “she.”
Never anything about cat’s mothers, though.
The Cellist?
I never experienced this in regard to my mother, but I can remember being reprimanded for referring to a teacher as “she” in England in the 1950s.
I must have been about 4 or 5 years old.
Clearly the issue was respect, not ambiguity.
I thought it was stupid then, and I do now.
I also got this and grew up thinking that a ‘she’ was the term used to describe a mother cat.
NSW-Australia
I’ve never heard of this, but I grew up in the Midwest in the 90s.
I could see finding it a little annoying if your kid starts using a pronoun without say who or what they’re referring to, but that applies to any person, place, thing or idea, not just parents and elders.
my Grandmother used to say the same thing (“she is the cat’s mother”) as did my own Mom
Grandma was Portuguese, if we’re keeping track.
I’ve never heard of this before. I grew up in western Canada.
Some of the examples aren’t clear to me. Is it just using “she” out of the blue?
Compare:
A) Child walks into Dad’s study. “Mom said she’d drive me to the movies. May I have some extra money for popcorn?”
B) Child walks into Dad’s study. “She said she’d drive me to the movies. May I have some extra money for popcorn?”
Is A rude? If so, should the second “she” be replaced with something, or should the whole sentence be rephrased so no “she” is needed? Is only B rude? I can’t remember anyone ever talking that way anyway.
My parents, too! I always heard the “Don’t call your mother she,” except I got it in Hindi. It was a matter of respect.
It was like this, sort of:
Dad: Who said you could do that?
Me: She did. gesturing
Dad: Don’t call your mother she!
It was OK to say “Mom said she’d drive me to the movies, of course”. But not OK to say B in Max’s example.
(in the world of my childhood …)
A is fine.
B is not. Your mother is not a random nameless cab driver, she’s your mother. Show some basic respect and call her “Mom.” (In other words, say exactly what you did in example A).
I grew up in New York, but the biggest proponent of this rule in our house was my grandmother, who was raised in the midwest so I think it might be more widespread, perhaps a generation or two back. My mother didn’t enforce any rules that her mother had so it wasn’t anything to her.
There’s a nuance though, that I hope I can explain. If I’m working at my desk I can hear conversation taking place in the living room. If my husband asks my son a question and the answer (regarding me) is “She took me to the post office” nothing happens in my brain. If we’re all in the same room and my husband says “Junior, go hang up your sweatshirt” and the kid answers “She left hers on her chair!” I experience a visceral "Don’t call your mother ‘she’ " reaction.
Okay, nevermind explaining it. I can only explain that it happens, not why it happens. I think it bears mentioning that it only happens when my son’s voice is dripping with disregard for me, and for any parental authority. Since I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have any rational foundation I work at not overreacting when it happens, or perhaps it’s more correct to say I work at not expressing my overreaction outwardly.
My mother and her mother are guilty of this several times a day; it drove us nuts, so we grew up making a point to avoid it. It drove Dad so crazy when they did it that he allowed us kids to correct them without even being particularly polite about it. Out of the blue “oh, she’s so stupid!” “who is, Mom? Have I done something or is it another she?” “Nah, my friend Gloria, evidently” “evident this chair, Mom, if you’re going to start insulting people who aren’t even in the room at least say who before we think it’s about us.”
Spanish doesn’t require the subject to be explicited, but politeness and clarity do require that you mention it at least once so people know what are you talking about.
Spaniard and boy did we get hell for that. But we were allowed to give it, too, and the nephews are now. If anybody asks his parents how old my nephew is with the kid right there, the parents will say “he can talk, you know” and the kid’s been known to answer “I’m three and I’m not stupid!”
Oddly, no.
I grew up in Los Angeles, and my mom got all huffy if I ever referred to her as “she.” The first time it happened, I was genuinely confused. What, are we not allowed to use pronouns anymore? I dismissed it as her being crazy/foreign, and went along with it figuring it was easier to obey her than to argue.
I just asked my aunt, who lived in Michigan for fifty-something years, and she never heard of this either. It doesn’t appear to be regional to me.
I got this too. I always wondered where the expression “The cat’s mother” came from.
Did everyone who had this expression used on them even have cats??