to keep quiet about something; my lips are sealed.
mum means mmmmmm (the sound made when putting your lips together)
came from Shakespeare quote:
"Seal up your lips and give no words but mum."
person 1: "Please don't tell anyone about my affair."
A criticism pertaining the management, when criticising middle management or other useless and expensive building hold backs, Gölök Buday, the BlackJester would say "MUMs the word," going back to the 2000 election when Maharishi's university of Management started getting noticed, ala John Hageline.
Products would cost less if they spentless of tedious corporate bureaucracy, MUMs the Word!
Fogey/fogy /fougi/ sl. (early 18C+, orig. Scot) old-fashioned, stuck-in-the mud.
Person with old fashioned ideas which he is unwilling to change: Come to the disco and stop being such an old fogey!
You think me an old fogeyand an old tory, his thoughtful voice said. I saw three generations since O’Connel’s time. I remember the famine. Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the union twenty years before O’Connel did or before the prelates of your communion denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things. (James Joyce, Ulysses. PenguinBooks,1992. p. 38)