Heard on The Judges: "mother dear," "souphomore"

[Wilson Gray]

Judge Joe Brown addressed the mother of a litigant as "mother dear":

"_Mother dear_, step forward!"

In  addition, he referred to a college student multiple times as a
"souphmore" [sawfmowr].


I was mildly surprised to hear "mother dear" used as a term of address
for someone else's mother. I thought that that that usage had pretty
much died out. Obviously, I just haven't heard it used, because I've
been living Boston's Back Bay for the past twenty years.

OTOH, "souphmore," "souphmo'," etc. are pretty much "standard" in BE.
Only people like me who've made the effort to learn sE say
"sophomore," which is felt to be a hypercorrection in the 'hood.

-Wilson
-
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain

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