Talk:mither
- Note: the below discussion was moved from the Wiktionary:Tea room.
hello am new to this site...
my boyfriend, who hails from Bristol, was astonished by my use of a word he thought did not exist, but which came from my childhood days in the North Midlands, when I asked my son to "stop mithering him" for sweets....
have looked it up on this excellent site, and found some wonderful derivations of it...amazingly, as well, it could even come from Welsh origins, which is fantastic, as I am currently living in Wales...
does anyone else use this term/have knowledge of its usage??
Witchy —This unsigned comment was added by Witchy (talk • contribs) 09:00, 3 February 2009 (UTC).
- The word is a variant of moider and moither, and also exists in Manx and Irish as well as Welsh, so my guess is that it has a Celtic origin, though I have no proof. Dbfirs 21:40, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
- In my childhood in 1950s north Cheshire it was certainly used as "mithering for ..." as quoted and, I believe, was exclusively aimed at children. I guess that the modern equivalent is 'pestering for ...'. Saga City 12:06, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Pronunciation
[edit]The present IPA guide in the article ( /ˈmaɪðəɹ/) looks to be correct but for the final "əɹ".
In areas from the northern Welsh marches via Lancashire to Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, where the word has its most common use, "mither" is therefore spoken in non-rhotic accents. Therefore the commonest British pronunciation would be "/ˈmaɪðə/" or "/ˈmaɪðəd/".
Fred
