Mums the word

What does this mean?

Mums the word...

used when asking somebody to keep a secret. Say nothing about this !
Silent ! keep mum !

I think it's "Mum's the word."

~~~MM~~~
Mom's the word. Mum sounds wierd. "Oh, Mummy? Look!" I wouldn't wan't want to call my mom that. To me it's just a dead body wrapped in cloth and stored in a pyramid. Mommy is more like it. Not that I'm being cynical or criticizing or anything...
***MP & BB, Kiani***
. ^ * ^ .
=(^ . ~)= <meow!> Meet my cat, Nyuu-Neko! ("Meow-Cat")
p.s.: Happy Friday the 13th!

No mum's the word. Mom's the word implies the mum is the same word as for mother, which I don't believe.

mum - 1521,
from M.E. mum, mom, imitative of the sound made with closed lips. Phrase mum's the word is first recorded 1704. As an abbreviation of chrysanthemum it is first attested 1924.

mumble - c.1325, momelen,
probably freq. of mum.

mummer - c.1405,
probably a fusion of M.Fr. momeur "mummer" (from momer "mask oneself," from momon "mask") and M.E. mommen "to mutter, be silent," related to mum.

Simon:

Thanks for your lexographic contribution. Where did you take those from?

"Mum's the word"- universally. As Simon said, the "mum" refers to the closed lips, not one's mother. However, contrary to Simon's belief, children in the UK and the Commonwealth (except Canada) do refer to their mothers as "mum" or "mummy". In Hong Kong, we called our mothers "mummies" before we learnt about Egyptian mummies. It was rather scary knowing that your mother shared a common name with a wrapped-up dead body.

Hiyakiani,

"nyuu neko" tte itta yo ne.
moshikashitara, nihongo ga dekiru kashira?
tokorode, sono neko wa douyatte aeru no?

YOU'RE ALL DUMB ASSES!
ESPECIALLY THE FRENCH!

I'm such an arsehole!!!!!!!

OOOh yeah!! That's sooo good to be that stupid!!! I'm having an orgasm!!!

You don't need to state what you are. We're perfectly aware of it. :p

Mom sounds really bad,

American pronounce it (to my ears) as MARM
While you can't go wrong with MUM

marm? ew that sounds really ugly. i can tell you i've never heard anyone over here say it that way, i'd have told them to stop. as for me, i say "ma"

The reason why hp20 doesn't realise that Americans pronounce "mom" as "marm" is because...
1. hp20 has lived in America for her whole life and is accustomed to the American pronunciation of the "o" sound as "ah". The British pronounce "o" with rounded lips and the sound comes from the back of the mouth.
2. asda is most likely a British and when she wrote "marm" she did not intend to pronounce the rhotic "r" sound. What she meant by "marm" is probably "mahm" to Americans.