Q

[cadavergradual]

When you - let's say, an American - write to an Englisher re: their mother, and particularly when they have just written of her as mum, -u, do you adopt English spelling or stick to your own? Would using theirs - because while she is close, personal, theirs, her preposition is just one of many, a distant word itself adopted - be pretentious like

Comments

[newly_ancient]

funny. i wrote out quite a lot of what i thought of this but it all blended together into not really mattering and so many circumstantial differences. it's an interesting thing to think about, for sure, with lists of rules i could make up.

i would say "your mother," but perhaps that's because i like the word mother far more than mom or mum. i never call my mother anything other than her first name unless i'm trying to be cute.