• restingboredface@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    I never understood this, as my grandparents were always grandma/grandpa, or granny (in my paternal granmothers case she preferred it).

    Then I moved to the south, and met my husband’s family and friends. Every single one of them had weird names for at least one of their grandparents. A lot of them called grandmother “meemaw” and my father in law is papaw to my neices and nephews.

    I took it as a cultural thing, but it still feels a bit strange to me.

    • TheSlad@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      I fucking hate meemaw/mamaw and papaw with a passion. Partly because me ex’s white-trash family uses them, but also they just sound stupid and I hate saying/hearing them

          • Sotuanduso@lemm.ee
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            4 months ago

            I’ve heard the term, but the only meaning for it I can think of is that they’re trash because they’re white.

            • TrousersMcPants@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              It’s actually kind of a fucked up term but a lot of people don’t consider it, it’s both super racist and classist. I don’t really think less of anyone for saying it because it’s such a common term but I personally don’t like using it. The original implication is that poor white folks are “trash”, comparing them to enslaved African Americans.

              • hazeebabee@slrpnk.net
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                4 months ago

                I also find it to be a derogatory, distasteful, and bigoted term. I definetly think less of people I hear who use it, & hope eventually it will be dropped from the cultural conciousness like other bigoted terms.

                It’s a way to police what “whiteness” should be, and is a term I’ve only ever heard from well off and judgemental people.

                • TrousersMcPants@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  I’ve heard a lot of poor folk use it too, it’s basically just a derogatory term for a redneck in the Midwest where I live. I don’t think a lot of people really understand it’s implications.