I tend to gravitate towards books by English authors and as such the audiobooks I listen to have English narrators.
One thing I've never been able to nail down based on regional accents and word usage in any given book is if most individuals pronounce mum and ma'am differently. Without context clues I'm unable to hear the difference in at least some English accents. This is not something I've ever noticed struggling with with other UK based accents, but maybe I would.
So my question are: what's your accent? do you pronounce these words differently? and if so can you try and break down how for me?
Thanks so much
Update: thanks everyone as many of you guessed i read a pretty fair amount of mysteries that include the police officers etc. I also occasionally read entirely silly series like Her Majesty The Queen Investigates, which well involve both Queen Elizabeth II and female detectives.
Also if you're curious from my perspective as someone in the Western USA, the use of sir and ma'am is far from universally common in the USA, it's common amongst the military and their children, people in 'The South' and certain other cultural sub groups. But I don't think I had ever called anyone Ma'am until I was well into adulthood and started interacting with said sub groups more.