I know this argument is as old as the hills, but wanted to put it out there for all to debate…
When pronouncing Ma’am, which is the official and correct way to say it… Ma’am as in ‘Jam’ OR Ma’am as in ‘Farm’?
In my previous service experience it has always been ‘Farm’, however my new Sqn use ‘Jam’ as supposedly it is written officially somewhere (though I have yet to see the hard evidence)…
My understanding is that all female Officers and WO’s are ‘Farm’ and HM The Queen is ‘Jam’…
Thoughts on a postcard!
Thanks.
[quote=“Matt_G455” post=25682]I know this argument is as old as the hills, but wanted to put it out there for all to debate…
When pronouncing Ma’am, which is the official and correct way to say it… Ma’am as in ‘Jam’ OR Ma’am as in ‘Farm’?
In my previous service experience it has always been ‘Farm’, however my new Sqn use ‘Jam’ as supposedly it is written officially somewhere (though I have yet to see the hard evidence)…
My understanding is that all female Officers and WO’s are ‘Farm’ and HM The Queen is ‘Jam’…
Thoughts on a postcard!
Thanks.[/quote]
The reasoning I’ve always used is that you’re just removing a letter from ‘madam’ to make it ma’am, in the same way that cannot is contracted to can’t.
So, if you say madam in the normal way, removing the middle ‘d’ sound just reduces it to something that rhymes with ‘jam’ much more than ‘farm’. Unless you say ‘madam’ as ‘mard-harm’.
Down my way, can’t is pronounced “carnt”.
Officially it is supposed to be the “jam” way, but I believe the “mam” for HM and “marm” for everyone else is the common rule and the one I abide by. Tradition and all that!
Ma’am “like ham” is what the book says.
Seems pretty clear.
I too like to point out that it’s a contraction of Madam.
Either way, if we can just get away from the stupidity of calling female Officers/WOs “Marm Bloggs” it’d be a start!
The upper classes say ‘mam’, the working classes say ‘marm’ and the middle classes need it written down so that they know who to shun.
In South Wales, there is a slight problem; ‘Mam’ is what you call your Mother, and Cadets have an issue with calling Female Staff the equivalent of ‘Mum’ (and it fazes the Female Staff too if they’re locals)
I’m Welsh, never caused me a problem.
“Ma’am” is more drawn out than “Mam”.
Ma’am is now pronounced by convention as ‘Maahm’, with a closed-fronted low emphasis on the vowel.
It should not sound like MAAAM (which is the calling for someone’s mother in an Alan Bleasdale drama)
‘Marm’ should be a non-starter, unless it’s an integral part of your own local accent.The addition of an ‘intrusive r’ is a regional rhotic pronunciation from certain dialects (eg “wash” being pronounced “warsh”, or “good” sounding like “gurd”, same as talon’s example)
Anyway: what I’d like to know is, how does a commissioned officer informally (but publicly) address a female Warrant Officer?
Because it could (with arguable justification) be either:
‘Mrs’ (ie missus), or;
‘Miss’, or;
‘Ms’ (ie mizz)
Is there an official guidance somewhere on this?
wilf_san
ps 
All three terms of address appear to be acceptable. Personally I’d use the neutral Ms [Surname] unless the WO had expressed a preference.
From the RAF website…
“Warrant Officers are addressed as “Mister” (or “Mrs”, “Ms” or “Miss” for female Warrant Officers) by commissioned officers (and as “Sir” or “Ma’am” by everyone else).”
My day job boss is a female ex WO1 (RSM) and seems to prefer the use of Ms.
MB
Indeed.
If the WO is unknown to the officer they would address them as “Warrant Officer”. At which point the WO should introduce themselves and from then on be addressed as “Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss Whatever”.
In the NE of England, Ma’am with Jam means something else to cadets i.e. it is what they would call their mother…they don’t use Mum.
So up here, we use Ma’am as in farm to avoid confusion and embarrassment.