The great granny debate
Jun. 4th, 2008 12:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todayiamadaisySomeone seems to have declared today Lack of Self Awareness Day or Pot Calling the Kettle Black Day or something. In the space of several hours, an extremely chatty person has complained about someone else talking too much; an inveterate gossip has told me that she doesn't know anything that goes on in this town and followed that up by telling me everything that goes on in this town; and the most self-absorbed person I know has just announced that someone else's ego is out of control. I suppose I should come out and say how much I hate smug know-it-alls just to round it out.
One of the doctors at work has just become a grandmother, and that led to a discussion about what grandmothers are called. My grandmother chose to be called Grandma or Gran; not Granny and definitely not Nanna or Nan or Nanny, because she thought they sounded old. (My grandfather was Pa, although whether that was his choice or my grandmother's, I don't know.) In contrast, my colleague Leeanne, who is also a grandmother, prefers Nanna because it sounds younger than the Gran-based names to her.
And then there's John, my mother's partner, who insists that his grandchildren call him Grandfather because it amuses him. My cousins called their other grandparents Mar-Mar and Par-Par. I went to school with a boy who called his grandparents after their place of work, so he had Nan and Pa Tip-Truck and Nan and Pa Farm. Another family I know had one petite grandmother and another who was quite a large lady, so they called them Little Nan and Big Nan (who must have been a good sport, because when she became a great-grandmother she happily became known as Great Big Nan). A friend of my mother's, Australian-born to Irish parents, feels that all the English-language options make her sound too old, and so wants her infant grandchildren to know her as Abuela (from the Spanish); she is meeting some resistance from her children on this.
What about you, f-list? What do you call your grandparents? Which sounds older: Gran or Nan? Or should we take up my spellscheck's suggestion and call all Nannas "Manna" instead?
One of the doctors at work has just become a grandmother, and that led to a discussion about what grandmothers are called. My grandmother chose to be called Grandma or Gran; not Granny and definitely not Nanna or Nan or Nanny, because she thought they sounded old. (My grandfather was Pa, although whether that was his choice or my grandmother's, I don't know.) In contrast, my colleague Leeanne, who is also a grandmother, prefers Nanna because it sounds younger than the Gran-based names to her.
And then there's John, my mother's partner, who insists that his grandchildren call him Grandfather because it amuses him. My cousins called their other grandparents Mar-Mar and Par-Par. I went to school with a boy who called his grandparents after their place of work, so he had Nan and Pa Tip-Truck and Nan and Pa Farm. Another family I know had one petite grandmother and another who was quite a large lady, so they called them Little Nan and Big Nan (who must have been a good sport, because when she became a great-grandmother she happily became known as Great Big Nan). A friend of my mother's, Australian-born to Irish parents, feels that all the English-language options make her sound too old, and so wants her infant grandchildren to know her as Abuela (from the Spanish); she is meeting some resistance from her children on this.
What about you, f-list? What do you call your grandparents? Which sounds older: Gran or Nan? Or should we take up my spellscheck's suggestion and call all Nannas "Manna" instead?