LiamLicks: 6/7/09

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Great or Grand or Grande

I have had many great-aunts in my life. I have known some and only heard about some. My grandmother (mother's mother) had many sisters and some brothers (most seem to have been missing). My father's mother had a sister also. I do not remember all the names but some were Maggie, Kitty, Celie, Agnes (2- one on each side), Anna, Maize. My mother's mother was Rose.
One great-aunt actually did a fifties version of day care-I stayed with her while my mother worked. Her name was Anna Montgomery. As a toddler, I was not able to say her full name. I am told I called her Nanny Gummy. Makes sense-Anna Montgomery= Nanny Gummy. So there was a great-aunt babysitting me full time.
Now I am a great-aunt because my niece, Liz, had a baby girl in April, Kiera Grace. I have my first grandniece

A question has occurred to me. Why am I great and why is she is grand? Why are we not consistent in our titles? Either both great or both grand. If my sister is her grandmother, why am I not her grandaunt?
I checked the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary for the definitions of great-aunt and grandaunt. It seems I am either great or grand. They are synonyms for each other.

Great-aunt, noun, dates from 1637, synonym -grandaunt
Grandaunt, noun, dates from 1826, synonym -great-aunt

The definitions of great and grand, apart from the relationship definition, are quite nice.
The Irish love to say "tis grand" and how many times a day do we say "great."

Merriam Webster Online has some meanings for each word-

Grand- Anglo-French -dates to 1548
Magnificent, imposing, majestic, lofty, sublime, stately, chief

Great- Middle English -dates to before 12th century
Huge, numerous, eminent, noble, main, aristocratic. distinguished

My relationship to Kiera allows me to be either Great or Grand, not both. I would like to be Great and Grand. We Leos believe we are. Ruth gets to be both as she is Kiera's Great Grandmother.
Great-Aunt Carol and Great Grandmother Ruth before they had titles

and Liam, Ruth's grand-dogger

beneath famous water color, "Embrace" of Mother and Child (could be someone's grandniece)

I have decided to be not to be addressed as a great-aunt. Grandaunt is looking better.
I like more of the synonyms for grand than I do for great. In addition, there is no hyphen in grandaunt, smoother, more pleasing visually.

And there is another reason. I had some boring mind-numbing jobs as a teenager. There were times when I wanted to take a day off but knew that a young healthy girl calling in sick was not believable. I had to make someone else sick. So I started using my great-aunts as excuses. I would say "My great-aunt is very ill." It always worked. They were relatives, respected and distinguished, but not close enough to cause guilt in using them for playing hooky. I reached my nadir of excuses when I actually lied about the death of one. She was already deceased, so I rationalized it was okay. I would not mess with a "live" relative. When the manager came to see me to express his condolences on my return to work, I was mortified. I couldn't even remember which one I had summoned from the grave for my excuse! I realized how terrible killing off these great ladies was; even worse than enduring the temp summer jobs.
I never used my great-aunts again as excuses for staying home from work.

I so seldom used sick leave at my career Social Security job that I ended up with almost a year added to my pension, as credit for unused sick leave. I can thank all my great-aunts for that lesson.

Therefore, I think being called a great-aunt would tempt fate "sort of what goes around, comes around." I sure don't want to be used as an excuse to cut work or school by a young relative. I will be a grandaunt. I will spare Kiera the "great-aunt excuse" temptation.

Maybe even a Grandeaunt-my favorite Starbucks size drink being grande, mid-size between tall and venti. Liam licks a grande non-fat latte