I’m watching Vera with Brenda Blethyn at the moment. I have to ask: Do British policewomen really call witnesses and suspects “Luv” and “Pet” when they’re interviewing/interrogating them? It reminds me of Christie Love’s catchphrase “You’re under arrest, Sugar!” back in the '70s.
“Pet” is specifically associated with the Geordie dialect (the Newcastle area in the NE, I think the series is set in that area). But with that caveat - yes, both “love” and “pet” are generic terms of endearment that someone trying to establish a “good cop” relationship with a suspect might use. Typically, a man would use them only toward a woman; a woman toward someone of either gender. I don’t think there’s any age restriction in usage.
It sounds weird to me, but then, I can imagine an American cop using “honey”, which is basically the same thing.
In parts of the West Country, “my lover” isn’t uncommon, even (I once read somewhere) from a copper handing out a traffic fine to some equally burly trucker.
But to me it seems a trifle overdone in Vera: as a means of trying to settle an anxious witness, or lull a suspect into revealing more than they intended to, or genuinely to sympathise with someone cornered into something disreputable, even criminal, OK - but when they’ve just about skewered the culprit for some ghastly cruelty? I hae ma doots.
I see. And would a female officer’s subordinates address her as “Mum”? Or is this just Geordie-speak for “Ma’am”?
The latter. There may be a pronunciation difference, but senior police officers are addressed “Ma’am” in the U.K.
If you want a further primer on Geordie, try the Viz character Sid The Sexist.
When I lived in the UK (1976–77), I had a good friend from Newcastle who tried to teach me the dialect. I got as far as the lyrics to “Blaydon Races” before I had to go back to the US.
Even British people who are more familiar have trouble understanding full Geordie dialect. Anything you see on a TV show will probably be more just Geordie-accented with a few words like “pet” thrown in or it would require subtitles.
And in the north east we pretty much always call our mothers “mam” which sounds exactly the same as “ma’am” in many cases. (which is sometimes pronounced “marm” but by no means always
Don’t the Irish also say “mam” instead of “mum” or “mom?”
I remember the Irish student in Harry Potter saying “mam.”
And the usual form in addressing HM the Queen (after an initial “Your Majesty”) is “ma’am” which rhymes with “jam”.
The pronunciation of “ma’am” is… complicated. And although I realize that Buckingham Palace have specified this pronunciation, I think it’s dubious for them to do so. Specifying how she should be addressed is one thing; specifying how words (other than proper names) should be pronounced is quite another. One assumes that they would not deem any of the the various vowel sounds associated with regional accents unacceptable in other vocabulary when addressing the queen.
I remember Helena Bonham Carter, playing George VI’s wife in The King’s Speech, specifying that pronunciation.
Sometimes “mammy” (years ago there was a TV sitcom called “The Mammy” about a fearsome matriarch - Siobhan McKenna - with a son - Milo O’Shea - who can’t cut the apron strings) but “ma” is not unknown (in “Derry Girls” there’s a scene where they’re trying to avoid the inevitable storm if their mas find out something, but have to reject the idea of going to their das because “Das are just ma-enablers!”)
And Yootha Joyce!
Ah my memory failed me. Anna Manahan, of course. She had a whale of a time as the termagant.
I think it’s to stipulate that it’s not the drawn out MARM (which is what women Police officers are called), rather than over riding regional variations.
It’s dubious, not to say futile, for anyone to attempt to prescribe universally how a word should be pronounced in English
But that is the same word. There is no separate word “marm” for senior police officers, that is a pronunciation of “ma’am”.