You english speakers out there, how the fuck do you separate your parents grandparents in normal conversation? Like in swedish we have separate words for moms and dads grandparents but you just use the same??? Like the only way it gets complicated in swedish is if someone has two or multiple moms or dads but that just means you’d be completely fucked in english??? How do you manage this explain
(speaking of I think spanish and french both do the same thing like why why would you)
There are multiple different terms for grandparents in English so it depends who you are really.
I use Granny for my mum’s Mum, and Grandma for my dad’s Mum.
British people also use Nan or Nanny sometimes for female grandparents (though that also has connotations as nannies were caretakers for children in the upper classes in the Victorian and earlier eras).
My cousins differentiate their grandmothers by calling them their names as well – so Granny “name” and Granny “name”.
My mum called her mum’s dad Grampa, and her dad’s dad Grandad – so there are lots of different variations that people will use.
I think people also use Pops, Grandad, Granpa, Grandmum, Grandmother, Gran, and probably loads more – depending on family use etc. I don’t have as many examples of grandfather use because I call both of my granddads by their names and nothing else..
It’s also probably really different depending on whether you ask someone from the UK, America, Canada, Australia, or NZ..
That does make it easier – and you can personalize what words you use to be more affectionate too, that’s great.
Still sounds confusing when you’re talking to someone who does’nt know what words your family uses and you don’t know theirs.
I should probably clear up how swedish deals with this for you who don’t know.
“Mormor” and “Morfar” = Grandma and Grandpa on the mothers side – literally mommom and momdad.
“Farmor” and “Farfar” = Grandma and Grandpa on the fathers side – literally dadmom and daddad
“Gammelmormor” and “Gammelfarfar” = Great Grandma on the mothers side and Great Grandpa on the fathers side – literally old mommom and old daddad.
And so on.
Granted we’d still end up confused in text and conversation about someone with same-sex parents/grandparents, non-binary parents and or multiple parents/stepparents, and have fewer personalized words to use to differ between people, but I feel like such a situation would be even more confusing in english. But maybe that’s just because swedish is my first language?
Idk languages are weird
For things that are more formal like medical history or mapping out geneology, English prefaces it with maternal or paternal to denote which side of the family they’re from. But going farther back can get into confusing terms, and same thing about the different ways that doesn’t work. Especially when we’re talking about actual family and not just genetic lines.
Great-grandparents on my (Mom’s/Dad’s) side.
…it’s just more words is all.
Dad’s parents are Grandma and Papaw. Mom’s parents were Grandma Jean and Grandaddy. Can never remember if we put one d or two in there. Think it was just one.
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