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Etymology Journal ยท H

How's your mom and them?

Meaning

A comprehensive way to ask about a person's mother and their extended family members in one go. It is the gold standard for rural Southern hospitality.

Affectionate, inclusive

Used in a sentence

  • I ran into an old neighbor at the grocery store and asked, how's your mom and them?
  • He sent a note to his friend asking, how's your mom and them?
  • She told her colleague to tell everyone hello and asked, how's your mom and them?

The backstory

This is a classic feature of Southern dialect. It serves as a shorthand to avoid naming every cousin, sibling, or family member individually.

Heard in

The South

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