our

   ‘Our’ is used in some English dialects to mean ‘belonging to our family’. Cider with Rosie, by Laurie Lee, has examples of ‘our’ + first name: our Mother, our lad. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, by Alan Sillitoe, has ‘our’ + first name addressed to brothers, sisters, and cousins of either sex, together with ‘our Mam’.

   Those who use this dialectal form would also when speaking to someone about their family, refer to ‘your Mam’, etc.

   Non-family use of ‘our’ occurs in An Indecent Obsession, by Coleen McCullough. ‘There’s something in you, our Michael, isn’t there?’ says one man to another. Both speaker and listener are patients in a small ward, temporarily part of a small, close-knit community vaguely resembling a family. The speaker is Australian, not one who would normally use ‘our’ expressions to members of his family.

   The advantage of the latter usage, as the distinguished British journalist Katharine Whitehorn once pointed out in an Observer article, is that it avoids the tendency parents in the south of England have of using ‘my’ when speaking of the children, something which can infuriate the partner.

   The article was a discussion in general terms about the use of ‘my’, ‘our’, ‘his’, ‘her’ within marriage, but said in passing: ‘How very sensible are those areas of the country where “our” is a built-in part of the name, as in “Our Jane wouldn’t do that” or “Come here, our Billy.”’