When I lived in Germany I insisted that people corrected me, even on the little things. Obviouly if I was trying to explain that the building was on fire I didn’t want people saying Hang on, when you say “der Gebäude” is engulfed in flames I think you actually mean “das Gebäude”, but there were loads of times when people said “Oh, I know what you meant so it’s OK”.
Nope… I want to sound like a German, not like an englishman trying his best so speak german, so if I made a silly mistake I’d rather someone said.
Case in point: I was talking about my father’s job to a friend’s parents, and I wanted to say his firm handled the distribution of medical drugs (“Medikamente”) but instead used the term “Drogen”, which actually meant my father was involved in the sale and supply of illegal narcotics throughout Europe and the USA.
The family knew I wasn’t really related to Pablo Escobar, but it’s still the sort of thing I’d prefer to get right.
Because he truly honestly thought he was saying it correctly. As soon as I start to clarify he’s thinking I’m just purposely being dense about it and slap fight ensues. That’s the point, I’ve got a reputation of correcting people, which bugs them, so in cases like this they just roll their eyes at me and walk away. Like I said, it’s something I consider a ‘flaw’ and I’m attempting to do it less since it drives people up the wall. It doesn’t help that he’s a terrible speller and his grammar is atrocious. I’m constantly ripping signs down from the store and asking him to fix them since they look like they were written by a 3rd grader. Now, I just pull them down and have another employee clean them up. Much faster and avoids an argument.
I’m also a reforming smartypants know it all. I find myself asking me, “Does this mistake impede clarity? Do I still know wtf this person is talking about?” If the answers are no, and yes, in that order, I refrain from correcting. If it’s a true misunderstanding and misuse of a word or a mispronunciation actually gives the statement a different meaning, I will ask, “That word can mean XYZ to me or ABC. Which did you mean?” Or I’ll try to soften the correction, “Um, I think I’ve heard that word pronounced this way.”
My SO speaks English as his second language. He has a lot of trouble getting his verb tenses correct. Sometimes he messes up his word order. Unless I have no idea what he means and can’t figure out what he’s getting at, I just let it slide. I will only correct if he asks me, “Did I say that right?”
He’s been known to invent words. You know how we’ll say something like, “Oh Lordy…”? Well, he says, “Oh Goddy.” It makes sense to me, from his point of view. If you add a “y” to “Lord” you get another word that’s a figure of speech. So why not take a synonym for “Lord” and add a “y” to that! It’s still a word, right? Because I can’t figure out how to explain to him why it’s wrong (because his logic makes total sense and English is retarded sometimes), I just let it go.
For example, I have a friend who likes to correct people when they mispronounce stuff. He’s slowly learned to be less of an ass about it, though. He’ll say stuff like “You know, is that pronounced XXXX or YYYY? I’m never really sure which it is.” This frames it as being about the pursuit of knowledge for it’s own sake, rather than about the people themselves being right and wrong.
My mom mispronounces stuff a lot, and I’ve learned to shrug it off. The question for me would be “Am I correcting them to help them, or to help myself?” If the only reason you are correcting them (and thus making them uncomfortable) is to satisfy your own needs, maybe you should just let it go.
If I corrected my mom every time she mispronounced something, we’d barely be able to have a conversation. She’s also not a native English speaker, and has a fairly pronounced (heh) accent. I know what she’s talking about, so I leave it alone.
I currently proofread documents on nuclear weapons safety.
In that professional context, I try to be right, and diplomacy comes in second.
“Yes, only my picayune interest in the under-appreciated field of ‘counting to five’ enables me to point out what I believe would be a slightly better approach…counting correctly.”
Normally, I try to let these go, but one of my friends has some weirdities I can never let go. For example, he pronounces cryo as “cyro” (sigh-rho). For whatever reason, that bugs the living piss out of me. I’ll usually accept any pronunciation which is remotely grammatically correct, but he manages to tweak me.
I follow the golden rule. If I’ve got facts wrong, I want to know about it, and if I hear someone else with the facts wrong, I’ll let them know about it. As politely as is reasonably possible.
