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English language (monolingual) [PRO] Art/Literary - Religion
English term or phrase:Ma
This is about a TV series. An orphan boy meets the person who will take care of him at the orphanage.
He calls her "Sister Mary", to which she replies: Never call me Sister Mary. Call me Ma
I'd like to make sure I'm choosing the right word here, so basically my doubts are:
1) Is there any chance that "Ma" is being used as short for "Mary", instead of the most obvious "mother"? In other words, is it common for people called "Mary" to be called "Ma"? I'd like to rule out that possibility.
2) Is it common for orphans to call Sisters "ma", "mother", etc. at an orphanage?
Explanation: I recognise that "Ma" is sometimes, though rarely, as far as I can see, used as a familiar for of "Mary", but even if that is involved here (and personally I tend to doubt it), I am fairly sure that the primary meaning is "call me mother". It's true that in English it could be taken either way, but I expect you will have to use a translation that cannot be taken either way (that is, you will not be able to use something that could be either a familiar word for "mother" or a familiar form of "Mary"), and that you will have to retain only one of these meanings. I am almost certain that you should retain "mother".
I think that in this situation, Sister Mary is being explicitly maternal towards one child and not towards the other, and that that is the key point. It's a more potent point than that one should be allowed to be on first-name terms with her and not the other. And it does not seem very likely to me that a nun would be inviting a small child to call her by her first name.
These blog critics of the series clearly takes it unambiguously as "mother", not "Mary", which doesn't prove anything, but at least shows the spontaneous reaction of a couple of keen viewers:
"Also, it’s fun to get some background context: that if Sister Mary was Lenny’s “Ma” (and let’s unpack THAT in a second), then Cardinal Spencer was Lenny’s Pa. [...] What’s up with Andrew Dussolier, another child from Sister Mary’s orphanage that grew up to be a Cardinal? I believe we get a flashback to Andrew arriving at the orphanage, where Sister Mary tells him “Never call me Sister Mary, call me mom,” which is the exact opposite of what she told baby Lenny when he arrived." http://observer.com/2017/01/young-pope-recap-episode-two-kan...
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 7 hrs (2017-02-07 10:00:50 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
I didn't explicitly answer your question 2. I'm afraid I have no personal experience of orphanages run by nuns, so I don't know whether it's common for orphans to call nuns "Ma (mother)", but I don't find it implausible that a nun would recognise the importance to a child of a mother figure and want to play that role. It seems likely to me that some nuns, having given up the possibility of having children of their own, might be glad to have a way of expressing their maternal instincts.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 12 hrs (2017-02-07 15:41:37 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
To answer your first question directly: "Ma" as a short form of "Mary" is extremely rare. I can find one example on the Internet apart from the one JW Narins has quoted. When pronounced "Mar" I don't think it exists at all. As Tony says, people called Mary are sometimes called "Mare", rhyming with "where", but I have never seen this written as "Ma", though that's probably how it's meant to be pronounced in the couple of examples we've found. The name Mary is not usually abbreviated at all. Molly, Polly, Mae and May were all originally familiar forms of Mary, but nowadays people regard them as separate names.
In any case, even assuming it is plausible that Sister Mary would not only invite a child to call her by her first name (which I find unlikely) but by a familiar form of her first name, it is exceedingly unlikely, in my view, that it would be "Ma". I don't think "Ma" is even ambigious here; I don't think it is meant to be a form of "Mary" at all. I think its only meaning is "mother".
Thank you and I hope no one got confused about the quotation marks in my second paragraph. They should have been double before "Refer" and single for 'Ma' - "copy & paste haste," but for some odd reason, I could no longer edit my comment.
Great addition, Björn! By the way, the series does have several expressions in Italian, and in fact entire dialogues in Italian (though most of them are in English). Thanks!
Speaking of double meanings, what about mother + mary as in Mother Mary or Virgin Mary - we're talking about a nun here.
Would fit neatly to the following: "Let her think you’re Jesus … like, the Jesus. 'Italian mothers think their boys are God. It’s like they are the Prince. If you think about why: They grow up and they don’t leave home 'til they’re 33, just like Jesus. They hang out with the same 12 guys, and their mother thinks they’re God. Look, I’m sure all people from all ethnicities think they treasure their sons. But Italian mothers — it’s something special. '"
And here's the second paragraph from "How to Love Your Mother Like an Italian": Refer to her only as “Ma” (or just be Danny Castellano). 'Italian boys, they love their mothers. But, oh, she gave me beatings. She taught me everything. I mean, the best love of my life was my Ma. She put me in my place, and any time that I was in trouble I’d look for Ma. It was all about Ma for me.' —Tony Sirico" http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/09/how-to-love-your-mother-like...
So this has little do with how TV series work these days, IMO. It's merely an expression prevalent among people of a particular subculture.
But I can't resist adding that I do wonder, if you were to do a survey of viewers who saw this episode and ask them what they understood when she said "Ma", how many would say anything other than "Mother"; how many of them would have thought, spontaneously, that it might be a form of Mary as well or instead. I can't help feeling that if you were writing this script and wanted people to understand "Mary", you would use "Mary", because "Ma" (pronounced "Mah") as a form of Mary is so unfamiliar to most people (in my opinion). I could be wrong.
Pardon me for butting in here, but there's a practical issue before us. I don't want to reiterate the arguments about whether Ma is intended or can reasonably be taken to be a form of Mary as well as a word for mother. It can't be proved either way. The script is what it is, and every viewer is free to interpret it. But in Portuguese, unfortunately, you do have to choose, because, as Matheus has told us, there is nothing you can use that would be both a form of Mary and a form of mother. At that point, the question of which is uppermost has to be faced.
Amel, that's all true. But it's also predicated on the initial "if you must choose between "Mary" or[sic] "mother"." Writers very often use double meanings - or meanings, names with suggestive second meanings. If you "choose" "Ma" for Mary, you DO have both meanings; the "mother" meaning is implied, always present. And that's in line with the way good TV/cinema works these days. This being Sorrentino and all. If you "choose" Ma for mother directly, you have just the direct statement. The former seems more likely to me.
"Ma is still used here in Boston regularly, the closer you are in Boston the more you will hear it. It’s because of the vast Italians that lived here and soon it just spread. Fathers we call dad or pop, but it’s always “ma” in a Boston household." http://www.word-detective.com/2013/02/mommy-mama-mom-daddy-d...
Charles has already expressed a lot of what I was thinking, especially the idea that if you must choose between "Mary" or "mother," then "mother" is almost certainly the better choice.
If you look at the link you posted in your initial query, you will also see the following:
Sister Mary ran the orphanage where Lenny’s hippie parents dumped him before disappearing to Venice. She’s the only mother figure he can recall, just like fellow orphan, now missionary Cardinal Dussolier (Scott Shepherd).
Also:
He tosses off the line, “There’s a new Pope now,” with the insouciant poise of a new gangland kingpin, much as Scott Shepherd brings to mind Mrs. Barker’s maternal charms when he calls Sister Mary, “Ma.”
Finally, JW Narins said: "They're Americans; the obvious term is Mom."
According to Wikipedia, this is an English-language Italian television drama series, and even if Diane Keaton plays an American nun, the setting is the Vatican, and we can't really ignore the fact that "ma" is the Italian term for "mom."
Hi, Lorena, that would be the ideal solution - one word for both meanings.
Unfortunately, however, in Portuguese we would have to choose between one of them: Ma (= Mary) or Mãe/Mamãe (Mother, Mommy). The first one would not convey the idea of "mommy" - it sounds more like a nickname...
She also takes care of another boy, and she is not so lovely with the other one (she seems to be more serious and more severe). In the case of this second boy, she does not allow him to call her "Ma".
I do think that this shortening (from "Mary") is generally likely to be used to play on the other meaning (Ma, Mom, mother). Probably in a back-and-forth way - is she like a mother? Or quite the reverse?
Automatic update in 00:
Answers
5 mins confidence:
ma
Short for Mary
Explanation: Absolutely. Examples in the web, too: "'Ma Watkins,' Arthur whispered. 'Oh, that was one of my names, certainly. But not my first,' she said. 'Ma was short for Mary. My first name was Mary."
JW Narins United States Local time: 10:21 Works in field Native speaker of: Russian, English
6 hrs confidence: peer agreement (net): +7
ma
mother
Explanation: I recognise that "Ma" is sometimes, though rarely, as far as I can see, used as a familiar for of "Mary", but even if that is involved here (and personally I tend to doubt it), I am fairly sure that the primary meaning is "call me mother". It's true that in English it could be taken either way, but I expect you will have to use a translation that cannot be taken either way (that is, you will not be able to use something that could be either a familiar word for "mother" or a familiar form of "Mary"), and that you will have to retain only one of these meanings. I am almost certain that you should retain "mother".
I think that in this situation, Sister Mary is being explicitly maternal towards one child and not towards the other, and that that is the key point. It's a more potent point than that one should be allowed to be on first-name terms with her and not the other. And it does not seem very likely to me that a nun would be inviting a small child to call her by her first name.
These blog critics of the series clearly takes it unambiguously as "mother", not "Mary", which doesn't prove anything, but at least shows the spontaneous reaction of a couple of keen viewers:
"Also, it’s fun to get some background context: that if Sister Mary was Lenny’s “Ma” (and let’s unpack THAT in a second), then Cardinal Spencer was Lenny’s Pa. [...] What’s up with Andrew Dussolier, another child from Sister Mary’s orphanage that grew up to be a Cardinal? I believe we get a flashback to Andrew arriving at the orphanage, where Sister Mary tells him “Never call me Sister Mary, call me mom,” which is the exact opposite of what she told baby Lenny when he arrived." http://observer.com/2017/01/young-pope-recap-episode-two-kan...
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 7 hrs (2017-02-07 10:00:50 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
I didn't explicitly answer your question 2. I'm afraid I have no personal experience of orphanages run by nuns, so I don't know whether it's common for orphans to call nuns "Ma (mother)", but I don't find it implausible that a nun would recognise the importance to a child of a mother figure and want to play that role. It seems likely to me that some nuns, having given up the possibility of having children of their own, might be glad to have a way of expressing their maternal instincts.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 12 hrs (2017-02-07 15:41:37 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
To answer your first question directly: "Ma" as a short form of "Mary" is extremely rare. I can find one example on the Internet apart from the one JW Narins has quoted. When pronounced "Mar" I don't think it exists at all. As Tony says, people called Mary are sometimes called "Mare", rhyming with "where", but I have never seen this written as "Ma", though that's probably how it's meant to be pronounced in the couple of examples we've found. The name Mary is not usually abbreviated at all. Molly, Polly, Mae and May were all originally familiar forms of Mary, but nowadays people regard them as separate names.
In any case, even assuming it is plausible that Sister Mary would not only invite a child to call her by her first name (which I find unlikely) but by a familiar form of her first name, it is exceedingly unlikely, in my view, that it would be "Ma". I don't think "Ma" is even ambigious here; I don't think it is meant to be a form of "Mary" at all. I think its only meaning is "mother".
Charles Davis Spain Local time: 16:21 Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 172
Grading comment
Thanks for your huge help, Charles! Thank you all for the comments and discussion.
Notes to answerer
Asker: Thanks a million, Charles! I totally agree with you. I wanted to make a more confident decision, and that's exactly what I needed.
Also, I hadn't thought about the pronunciation - a very important aspect mentioned by Tony.
Watching the video, it became clear to me that "Ma" cannot be "Mary" in this case. It is pronounced /mɑ/ , not /mɛə/.
