What dictionary labels tell us about words. Why we say 'mama'. DU, STU, and LO.
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Grammar Girl here. I'm Mignon Fogarty, your friendly guide to the English language. Today, we're going to talk about what you can learn about words from dictionary labels and why the words for mother are so similar in so many languages.

Dictionaries are one of the most important tools writers have at their fingertips, besides a good style guide. They not only tell us what words mean, they also tell us the history of those words, how to pronounce them, and how they're used in different contexts. Further, each dictionary uses its own set of labels that give specific information about how words are used, such as informal and slang.

As Georgia Southern University professor, writer, and editor Richard Nordquist explained in an article for ThoughtCo, labels and usage notes indicate, quote, particular limitations on the use of a word or particular contexts or registers or how we use language differently in different circumstances, whether in speaking, writing, or even sign language, unquote. Over the years, these labels have expanded in line with our changing language.

First, let's touch briefly on the history of dictionaries and how labels came to be. According to Oxford dictionaries, the earliest dictionaries were nothing more than glossaries that translated Latin words into Old English, the form of English spoken before about 1100 AD. The first monolingual dictionaries appeared in about 1600 and mostly defined the "hard words" in English.

By the 1800s, dictionaries started to expand their entries to include pronunciation, word origin, and parts of speech. In the 19th and 20th centuries, they became more inclusive and began to cover, quote, types of language that had not previously been considered appropriate, for example, slang, regional words, or technical jargon, unquote.

Today, dictionaries focus on how words are used in the real world. Most modern dictionaries have moved away from being prescriptive, stating how words should be used, and are descriptive, meaning they simply describe current usage. Most dictionaries are now online, which means they can offer even more, like multimedia and interactive content. But their basic purpose is still the same—to tell us what words mean.

Of course, different dictionaries vary in the number and types of labels used.

In his analysis of Samuel Johnson's 1755 Dictionary of the English Language in the English Diachronic Pragmatics Journal, University of Milan professor Giovanni Iomartino points out that usage labels and notes have been around almost as long as dictionaries have. But labels in Johnson's and other early dictionaries were more pragmatic, meaning they were more about the word than the speaker and how they were using it.

As Ian Martino puts it, quote, in the earlier phases, such labels and notes played a stigmatizing role, or at least were monitors of correct usage, while in modern lexicography, their function is simply descriptive, unquote.

So now let's look at some examples of dictionary labels and usage notes. For purposes of this discussion, we'll focus mainly on two well-known dictionaries, Oxford and Merriam-Webster, but we'll also touch on some others.

Merriam-Webster uses three types of status labels, quote, to signal that a word or a sense of a word is not part of the standard vocabulary of English, unquote. Temporal, regional, and stylistic. Its temporal labels include obsolete and archaic.

Obsolete means the word hasn't been used in that sense since 1755, like Purdue, meaning a soldier assigned to extremely hazardous duty, which carries the obsolete label in its entry. If the thing being described is obsolete, Merriam-Webster will note that in the definition itself, like one of the definitions of catapult, which reads, quote, an ancient military device for hurling missiles, unquote.

And the entry for catapult also has different non-obsolete definitions listed too. Archaic, on the other hand, is used for, quote, a word or sense once in common use, but found today only sporadically or in special contexts, unquote, like goody, meaning a usually married woman of lowly station.

Regional labels, as the name implies, indicate where a word or term is used. You may also see chiefly before some of these labels to indicate that the word has limited usage outside of that region. And some words have double regional labels, meaning they're used in both areas. For example, banquette, when used to mean sidewalk, carries the label Southern U.S.,

And dinkum, meaning authentic or genuine, includes the label Australia and New Zealand. Merriam-Webster uses the stylistic labels disparaging, offensive, obscene, and vulgar for words or senses that in common use are intended to hurt or shock or that likely give offense even when they're used without such an intent.

For example, the entry for lame, in the sense of unable or only partially able to use a body part and especially a limb, includes the double label dated, now usually offensive, and a whole paragraph to explain why it's problematic. Another stylistic label is non-standard, for words or senses that are disapproved by many, but that have some currency in reputable contexts.

A great example of non-standard usage is the word irregardless, which we discussed in episode 954. Besides these three main categories, Merriam-Webster sometimes uses a subject label or guide phrase to explain how and when a word is specifically used.

For example, the entry for anti-magnetic, meaning having a balanced unit composed of alloys that will not remain magnetized, includes the guide phrase of a watch. And this dictionary will also sometimes include a usage note for function words, like prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections, that are hard to define and carry little meaning in and of themselves.

For example, the entry for wow, when used as an interjection, includes the note, used to express strong feeling, such as pleasure or surprise, which is more of a description than a definition. Now, the other big daddy of dictionaries, the Oxford English Dictionary, sorts its usage labels into three categories, register, region, and subject.

its register labels are extensive and more detailed than in other dictionaries. The temporal labels, archaic, used in old-fashioned or historical contexts, and dated, old-fashioned but used within the last hundred years, fall into this category. Like Merriam-Webster, Oxford's register labels include derogatory and offensive,

But also on the list are several types of slang: vulgar, military, nautical, and even rhyming and theatrical. And some that are more culturally based, like dialect, euphemistic, humorous, rare, and ironic, among others. Oxford uses region labels similarly to Merriam-Webster, but doesn't call out words used in two different regions.

Its subject labels, such as art, ecology, finance, and medicine, are very specific and can help dictionary users figure out jargon and context. The Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic English includes a long list of labels that indicate academic subject areas, including anatomy, biology, economics, engineering, finance, mathematics, and my favorite, linguistics.

In contrast to Merriam-Webster and Oxford, the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary has a shorter list of labels, but does include some interesting ones not found in other dictionaries, like child's word or expression, female and male for words like starlet and effeminate, polite usage, and approving and disapproving for words like feisty and newfangled.

So next time you crack open or more likely click on a dictionary, pay attention to any labels and how they can help guide your usage. You might learn something new. That segment was written by Susan Herman, a retired multidisciplined language analyst, editor, and instructor for the federal government.

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Mama is one of the earliest words that babies utter. Moreover, it's not unique to any one language, but one of the most universally shared words across languages. From French maman to Russian mama to Chinese mama, it's fairly hard to find babies calling a mother by any other name. So what gives?

Well, when we consider the first sounds that babies babble, it typically involves one of three vowel sounds, E, AH, or U, and consonants like P, B, D, T, K, G, N, or M. Now, these sounds have been found to be among those babbled earliest regardless of which language a baby will end up speaking, which is related to the articulatory and perceptual characteristics of these sounds.

That means when babies start playing around with putting speech sounds together into rudimentary syllables, they draw from those vowels and consonants, giving us cute baby mutterings like dada, papa, nana, or mama. Of course, little Elvia has no idea what she's saying or that words are even a thing yet. But mom and dad are certainly cute into making these mutterings into something meaningful. In other words, names for themselves.

As a result, the similarity of baby words for mothers and fathers across languages can be understood as what naturally happens when baby babbles meet the ears of eager parents. Since all babies are pretty constrained in terms of the early sounds they're able to say, we get the same recurrent patterns, namely daddas, babbas, and papas or mamas and nanas that come to be heard as parental monikers.

In what might be the ultimate insult to all exhausted from lack of sleep mothers everywhere, babies have a habit of uttering Dada or Papa or Baba before Mama. Now, considering mothers still do the lion's share of work related to infant care in most cultures, this father-first inclination certainly runs counter to what we might expect. But moms can rest assured it's all about the sounds, not you.

While sounds like D, T, P, and B are all oral sounds, M is what's referred to as a nasal sound, meaning air flows through the nose. Though all appear early in baby babble, oral sounds are babbled more often than nasal sounds. So it's likely that the da-da bent of young babies is simply the result of this greater frequency, not greater fondness.

The bigger question is why there's such ubiquity across languages in linking dada, papa, or tata with fathers while mothers are almost always mama. After all, if moms are around more and dada is uttered earlier, why are more moms not called dada in languages around the world?

Well, a number of scholars have suggested that the answer lies in the roles that mothers play as the primary nourisher as well as primary nurturer. In other words, mothers are the ones who breastfeed, and the sounds babies tend to make when suckling at the breast are along the lines of mm, not duh.

As a result, these nasal sounds have more of a tendency to become associated with mother's roles than father's, giving rise to the prevalence of mama for the female parent in even unrelated languages.

The idea here is that babies make mm sounds when hungry or needing comfort, which mom recognizes as her call sign and responds. The association of M sounds with the breast is also carried over into the words mammal and mammary, both of which pertain to a female's production of milk.

But if we start out with a mama, how do we end up with the more grown-up version, mother? Mother is simply mama, with a bit more polish added on, mainly by way of the attaching of a kinship suffix, ter, T-E-R, to the ma that was already around. In other words, in Latin, mater, or Sanskrit, mater, both older languages descended from the same original source language as English.

Sure, the English mother has undergone a sound change or two in the intervening centuries since it was mordor in Old English, but you can still find the ma in a mother every time she gives a hug, no matter how grown up you are. That segment was written by Valerie Friedland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno and the author of Like Literally Dude, Arguing for the Good in Bad English. You can find her at ValerieFriedland.com.

And finally, here's a familect from Lynn. Hi, this is Lynn Glazer. I'm enjoying an Addicted, Become Addicted to Your Grammar Girl podcast. I'm a former English teacher at the college level. But at any rate, my familects were, I don't know if you can see these familects or not, but in our family, instead of saying if something was dumb or somebody, we weren't supposed to say someone was dumb, but if something was dumb, we would say, that was DU. If it was stupid, we'd say, that was STD.

S-T-U, S-T-U. And then if we were having leftovers or talking about leftovers, because my mom used leftovers a lot growing up, we'd say, yeah, we had L-O's tonight or we're going to have L-O's. And we knew what we were talking about in our family. That's what I guess some of the things from my family that I can remember at 82 years old. And I still use them today. I use them with my own children and my

I try to use them with my partner now that I'm a widow and he doesn't understand, but my family certainly did. So I certainly enjoy your podcast. Thank you. Continue the good work. Bye now. Thanks so much, Lynn. Your family would have been right at home with the people who came up with OK for All Correct that I talked about a couple of months ago. And thanks for all you did teaching English in college.

If you want to share the story of your familect, a word or phrase that you only use with your friends or family, leave a message on the voicemail line at 83-321-4GIRL or leave a voice message on WhatsApp. And if you want that number or link later, you can always find them in the show notes. Grab

Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast, and we have lots of other shows. Tomorrow, the Nutrition Diva is talking about the pros and cons of juicing. Check it out. Again, that's Nutrition Diva.

And thanks to Dan Fireobb and in audio, Morgan Christensen in advertising, Holly Hutchings in digital operations, Brandon Getchis, director of podcasts, and Nat Hoops in marketing, who was recently put onto reality TV by his partner and thinks Love Island UK is peak cinema. I'm Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl and author of the tip of day book, The Grammar Daily. That's all. Thanks for listening.

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