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When used as a noun (e.g., "... a grandparent walked by"), grandfather and grandmother are usually used, although forms such as grandma/grandpa, granny/granddaddy or even nan/pop are sometimes used. When preceded by "my ..." (i.e., "... my grandpa walked by"), all forms are common (anywhere from "... my grandfather ..." to "... my Gramps ..."). All forms can be used in plural, but Gramps (plural Gramps) is rare. In writing, Grandfather and Grandmother are most common, but very rare when referring to a grandparent in person. In speech, Grandpa and Grandma are commonly used in the United States, Canada and Australia. In Britain, Ireland, United States, Australia, New Zealand and, particularly prevalent in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nan, Nana, Nanan, Nannan, Nanna, Nada, Nanny, Gran and Granny and other variations are often used for grandmother in both writing and speech. In many parts of Pakistan and India maternal grandparents are called Nana and Nani. Similarly fathers side grandparents are called Dada and Dadi. A grandmother playing with her grandson Numerous other variants exist, such as Gramp, Grandpap, Grampy, Granddad, Granddaddy, Grandpappy, Pop, and Pappy for grandfather; Grandmom, Grandmama, Granny; Gran, Nanny, Nan and Grammy for grandmother. Gogo can be used for either, etc. Given that people may have two living sets of grandparents, some confusion arises from calling two people "grandma" or "grandpa", so often two of the other terms listed above are used for one set of grandparents. Another common solution is to call grandparents by their first names ("Grandpa George", "Grandma Anne", etc.) or by their family names ("Grandpa Jones", "Grandma Smith"). In North America, many families call one set of grandparents by their ethnic names (i.e., Hispanic grandparents might be called "Abuelo" and "Abuela", French grandparents might be called "Papi" and "Mami", Italian grandparents might be called "Nonno" and "Nonna", or Dutch and German grandparents might be called "Opa" and "Oma"). Languages and cultures with more specific kinship terminology than English may distinguish between paternal grandparents and maternal grandparents. For example in the Swedish language there is no single word for "grandmother"; the mother's mother is termed mormor and the father's mother is termed farmor.[3] Where the other Scandinavian languages, Danish and Norwegian, use words which specifies the kinship like in Swedish (identically spelled among all three languages). As well as using common terms similar to grandmother (Danish: bedstemor, Norwegian: bestemor) |
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