24 replies to this topic

[Double-0-Seven]

Reading Bond on Set: Filming Skyfall yesterday, I laughed out loud to myself. How could I have been so stupid?

Thankfully, I'm not the only one, as my friends all thought the same thing.

Are you ready?

All throughout this film (and Casino Royale and Quantum for that matter), I thought they were calling M mom. Or rather, mum.

Honestly, I didn't think anything of it. I thought it was just a sign of affection as she is "the mother" of MI6. That kind of thing. It's even referenced in Quantum of Solace when Camille asks Bond if it's his mother he's avenging to which he replies "No, but she likes to think so."

Well, according to the script excerpts in Bond on Set, they're actually calling her ma'am.

 

Let the laughing at me commence.

[plankattack]

Oh Double Oh, don't be so hard on yourself. That old duffer Finney kept calling her Emma!!!!

Seriously, as for the Bond on Set book goes (and I think they're great collector items), if you flipped through it before you saw the film (and it was on the shelves before the release in some countries), you had the plot given away. Rather lazy planning, considering how tightly EON had wanted the story kept under wraps.

[Turn]

Hey, I thought that was what they said too. And I thought it was kinda creepy. It's also not hard to believe that's what they said when Silva says "Mommy has been very bad."

[thecasinoroyale]

Haha, hey - at least you were honest about what you felt you heard!

[x007AceOfSpades]

I felt this way for a while with CR. When M comes home and see's Bond in her home before he leaves she says "Bond, don't ever break into my house again". As he enters the elevator He says "Ma'am", but for the longest time I thought he was saying "Mum". Didn't figure it out until I watched the scene with subtitle's on.

[byline]

Apparently a great many people thought that's what Bond was saying. As soon as I saw "Skyfall" the first time, I wondered if the "Mommy has been very bad" line was supposed to poke fun at that.

[Nicolas Suszczyk]

Will laugh at you but just a little. I've knew all the time they were calling her "ma'am" (particularily for the Spanish subtitle reading "señora"), but still, a psychologyst Bond fan friend of mine noticed there could be a word-game by making "ma'am" sound like "mum" as you said

[seawolfnyy]

I could def see how you could think that. Especially, since Connery pronounces it ma'am in YOLT, but no they never said it "mum". I don't that Silva saying "mommy was very bad" is poking fun at it, but you never know.

[MajorB]

No, no, no, it's MI6 shorthand for "Under the Official Secrets Act, I vow to keep this conversation mum." I thought everyone knew that.

[AMC Hornet]

The silly bint behind me in the theatre the last time I saw Skyfall kept saying to her companion, "She is Silva's mother! Silva's really her son!"

 

She probably left the theatre still convinced.

 

As for "Ma'am" sounding like "Mum" - well, that's nothing new to me. The Queen is often addressed that way. After a while you develop an ear for such dialect,such as the London accent shared by Eunice Gayson and Roger Moore, where you drop and 'r' between a word ending in a vowel and another beginning with a vowel ("It's an idear at that" & "He has Anyar on there.")

[Matt_13]

A pretty common mistake, actually. Had quite a few friends when CR came out thinking he referred to her as "mom."

[Iceskater101]

Haha I thought that James was calling her mum. Dang, my mind is blown.

[Professor Pi]

I've always heard "Ma'am." Tough there is that line from QoS:

 

"Your mother?"

"She likes to think so."

[Iceskater101]

Well after going to Skyfall for the 4th time, I was paying attention to this and I can tell that it is mam and not mum 

[Tanger]

Yeah lots of Americans seem to make this mistake.

[AMC Hornet]

Yeah lots of Americans seem to make this mistake.

And most Americans don't even say 'mum', they say 'mom'.

 

As a Canadian I hear both, but as an Anglo I recognize the subtle difference between 'mum' as in mother and 'mum' as in Ma'am.

[TheSilhouette]

I'd always thought it sounded a but like "mum" but I knew they were saying "ma'am". because the thought that agents refer to the head of MI6 as "mum" is totally ridiculous.

[Lektor]

I never thought they called her "mom"/"mum" 

Am I strange?

[Double-0-Seven]

I'm glad I wasn't the only one!

 

Now I can't not hear "ma'am" so I suppose it was a good thing after all. I've had fun telling a couple of my friends about this, all of whom were convinced it was "mum" just like I was. 

[Odd Jobbies]

Good lord, there are some things you really shouldn't own up to...

[Baccarat]

Ma'am is of course a contraction of Madam, and used as a courtesy. According to current Royal protocol, when addressing the Queen as Ma'am one should pronounce it as in "jam." However, confusion exists because Ma'am has also historically been pronounced as in "farm" and also "mum." Ironically, most Brits would regard "jam" as an Americanization, and therefore would be very comfortable with Bond's pronunciation in SF.

[Hockey Mask]

Put me down for a mum.

[Jim]

?

[Bucky]

When I originally saw Casino Royale I thought he had called her mom but later realized that it was ma'am.

[AMC Hornet]

Perhaps there was a bit of irony in the pronunciation - '"mum" as how one might address the Queen, since M represents Queen, country and duty to Her Majesty's loyal terrier.