What is the most mysterious of all our bodily organs? Not the brain, no, it’s the “craw.” We know it’s there because things get stuck in it, but most people have never figured out where it is. I think we’ve all had something stick in it when things don’t go our way, and when you’re sensitive to language usage, life can feel like a never-ending effort to calm the craw down. If someone doesn’t say things just as you would, look out: your blood pressure rises, a correction forms on the tip of your tongue, and in most cases you reluctantly swallow it out of deference to etiquette. I’ll give you an example of changing linguistic habits that has my craw swollen to the size of a hot-air balloon.
Where I grew up, no one ever said “my dad did this” or “my mom did that.” No, no. It was “my father, my mother.” “Dad” and “Mom” are the familiar forms, and I would use them as I would use the first names of friends, brothers, or sisters, that is, either in addressing them directly – “Is supper ready, Mom/ Mary?” – or in speaking about them to someone who knows them –“Dad/John is coming over later.” But if I were talking to someone who didn’t know him, I would not say “my dad is coming over later”; I’d say “my father,” just as I would say “my brother, John, is coming over” to someone who didn’t know who John was.
I first became aware of this in sixth grade when we got a new kid in school from Ohio, who said things like, “My dad works in the city.” I thought that was weird, and I still do, though now I’ve heard my own brother switching to this invasive species. I can’t put “my” in front of Dad, Mom, Grandpa, or Grandma and I’m not alone. Google’s n-grams show that for all four of these names, the trend to use the familiar forms with “my” picked up speed in the 1990s and really took off after 2000, though the older formulation still outpaces the newer one by far, at least in written work.
For me, saying “my dad” feels just plain wrong. It’s taking the familiar form, an intimate form, and using it publicly where it doesn’t belong. Maybe an analogy with pets would help explain: When I would talk to my dog, I’d say, “Let’s go outside, King.” But when talking about him to those who didn’t know him, I would say, “My dog is getting old.” I would never say “my King.”
Coming back to the location of the craw: it turns out this is a word derived from “kragen“ meaning “throat, neck” in Germanic languages. It’s related to “crop,” that pouch birds have in their throats to store food before it passes into the stomach. As far back as the 1700s we find phrases like “it stuck in my gizzard” or “gullet,” while beginning about 1800 it was most commonly “throat.” “Craw” shows up first in North America in the mid-1800s in rural speech. It was not until around 1920 that it crossed to the UK and gained some traction there.
As I pause and reflect on my reaction to “my mom and dad,” I freely admit to some unreasonable bias as my craw ingests these kinship terms. For example, when the guy who put in our new floor asked his 15-year-old son to “Go get Dad the measuring tape,” I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying “get Dad?” whatever happened to “get me”? Or what about this in a brochure for a retirement home: “When she’s 90, Mom will want to feel safe …” It sets the teeth on edge. She’s not YOUR mother! On the other hand, when the Brits say things like “Our Jim won the top award in school,” where we would say, “our son Jim,” it sails right past the craw, no sticking, no muss, no fuss. It’s quaint, it’s sweet, it’s British, and yes, I know, it’s inconsistent.
There is more to be said on this subject: aunts, uncles, and cousins to consider, and how kinship terms have changed over the centuries. Stay tuned.
Dale Coye is a member of the American Dialect Society. He has taught English and the humanities at several universities and worked in area theaters as a dialect coach and director. He grew up on a dairy farm in central New York and now lives in Wilton.