It's not miss, it's not mrs., it's not mr., it's "ma'm"? How the hell do you spell that word? And, for bonus points, what does the word really mean, and what are its origins?

Post edited for spelling .

Ma'am

On a related note, how do you spell ya'll?

Quoted: Ma'am

Thats the way I do it....

Quoted: On a related note, how do you spell ya'll?

Like that.  

Ma'am is short for madam.


IBN_T

[wikipedia]Madam or ma'am is a title for a woman. It is derived from the French madame, the equivalent of Mrs. or Ms., and literally signifying "my lady." The plural of madam in this sense is mesdames.[/wikipedia]

It's short for "you all", so following the "standardized" rules of contraction is should be "y'all".

ma'am

y'all

ain't

Quoted: Ma'am

+1

And why do people say this: “When abouts?” when "when" works just perfectly?

I think I'll take another swig and slur some more words......

ma'am

Standard use of the apostrophe is to fill in where letters or numbers are removed.

For example, "y'all" is spelled like so.  That is also why you talk about the '90s as a fucked up decade, not the 90's - the latter indicated possessive, a while other use for apostrophes.

As for ma'am - it is shortened from madam.  Webster tells us that the word came to English from Middle English, and before that from the Middle Frenchma dame, literally "my lady."

Webster continues to define the current use of the word as, "used without a name as a form of respectful or polite address to a woman."

And thus concludes today's lesson.

Edit:  Holy crap, this thread is moving fast - there were only a few replies when I started typing this ('course, I may have had the window open a while )

never mind, that wouldn't make sense.