That is pretty much my default. I don’t bother correcting people unless I think their misinformation is dangerous or will subsequently cause them to look like an idiot. Other than that I just let them talk and I listen. When people call me by the wrong name I just ignore it assuming that, they will never find out my correct name and so it doesn’t matter, or they will sometime find out my correct name so it doesn’t matter. Had I been the Cayman Island holiday maker in the OP I probably wouldn’t have corrected her either.
What zoos and aquariums feature “‘culture’ rather than ‘nature?’”
In this context, it works (even though IPA would be clearer) – most American English speakers will read “NAIR” and “NYER” as containing the same vowel sound. The sound in ER might have been confused with a schwa (as in “boner”), but it’s not because it’s a stressed syllable.
One week into a seminar on human geography (cultural ecology, etc.), and you’ll learn about “socionature,” “simulacra,” and how zoos and aquariums are intensely cultural. Any remaining debate (in academia, at least) these days is about how much places like Antarctica are a cultural creation.
That’s actually what convinced me that I was always going to be a guest and never actually join. I once heard two young men chortling, giggling, and mocking a lady who had made the unforgivable sin of wearing nylon to a Renaissance Faire. Not one of their events, mind you, but a Ren Faire, which is notorious for being far more flexible. They went on for about ten minutes too, and I decided I could never care about clothing that much.
ETA: Oh, that and the fact that I had to dress in costume for every event…they were more than willing to lend me a costume if I couldn’t invest the time and money. It was awful - these horrible looking pajamas. And everyone learned to sew and make everything themselves. AUTHENTIC.
JLRogers Zoos and aquariums contain nature but they are considered cultural. Seeing animals in nature would require a safari.
dropzone, thanks! I do. 
And to everyone - sure, I’ll visit the GC if I happen to be in the area. Don’t get me wrong! I just would never go only there. I like hiking OK but that is not an easy, fun hike, from everything I hear.
I might have done the same, assuming that **Anaamika **had switched to talking about the Grand Canyon, not just that she misheard me. It is obvious in your own mind when you make leaps between topics, but not always obvious to others, so they might just go with the conversation flow.
Here’s what I imagine the coworker might have been thinking: “Oh **Anaamika **is talking about the Grand Canyon now, maybe she’s going there? No, she’s talking about how she doesn’t like it, I guess we are just talking about vacations in general, I can do that. I can tell the story about when I went camping a few years ago and got lost and how terrible it was. Wait, now she’s saying something about how I’m going to the Grand Canyon? I guess she misheard me. I could correct her now, but we’ve been talking for a few minutes. How do I correct her without it being awkward? Would she wonder why I didn’t correct her earlier? I don’t quite know how to jump in here. Ugh, I hope I don’t make her feel like an idiot if I correct her now. Oh well, I guess it doesn’t really matter, it’s not like we talk about vacations that often, she might not ever know she was mistaken, maybe it’ll just be less awkward if I don’t correct her. I should probably get back to work anyway, that’ll be a good way to gracefully leave the conversation.”
I’ve been in similar situations. If it’s something important, I would correct the other person if it seems like they misunderstood or misheard me. But if it’s something not important that might not even come up in conversation again and it would be awkward to correct them, I might let it go.
Hahaha. I was sitting on the beach with a friend once. We were racing hermit crabs. She wondered out loud if there was such a thing as girl crabs vs. boy crabs. I stared at her for a second, realized she was serious and then asked her how did she think little baby crabs were made? Pause a few beats and then she said, “That was a really blonde thing to say, wasn’t it?” “Yeah.”
This thread reminds me of the Kathie Lee Gifford/Martin Short incident (at least the initial reaction.)
The older I get (and the more I read the Dope) the more I ascribe all annoying conversational behavior to simple Not Knowing What To Say awkwardness.
I’d rather be corrected. Perhaps that’s why I like this forum!
Whenever I hear someone dissing someone for mispronouncing a word, I keep my counsel, but I feet like pointing out what it means when someone uses a word correctly but mispronounces it. Usually, it means that they read a lot, learning words that they’ve never heard. Nothing to be ashamed of, whereas shaming someone for it is.
Gee, I wonder where baby earthworms come from, then.
I don’t know if they have any idea as to how to pronounce these drugs. I’ve heard Doctor A say one way, and Doctor B say another.
There are species that do not use two sexes to reproduce. cite: a lizard.
You’ve never seen earthworms mate? It can get messy and gross. Think of gay male porn, except moreso.
Yeah…mostly it’s 'cause we don’t have any more idea than you. We mostly see them written, not spoken. But it’s also 'cause we don’t want people to feel embarrassed or inhibited by a correction when it’s really just not that important. We want you to feel nice and safe and open. But I vastly prefer to actually see your medication bottles to reduce errors. Are you on desipramine or disopyramide? How sure are you, because those are very different drugs, and if I give you the wrong one, Bad Things Happen…
Good news is that drugs.com now has a button you can click on and it’ll say the name out loud. I do that a lot on my phone just before I call the pharmacy, and y’know what happens? Even the pharmacists will “correct” me with an incorrect pronunciation! 
(Took me six weeks to learn “hydrochlorothiazide” without stumbling. And that pesky “r” in"metoprolol" still sneaks away to hang after the “t” half the time when I’m not being very careful.)
I had a new guy at work let me call him by a wrong name and he never corrected me! It wasn’t until two weeks later when I got an email from him that I realized I had been calling him by the wrong name.
And the name I had been calling him was nowhere near what his real name was. Why the heck would someone do that!?
This really makes me smile, since I can see her having this exact thought process.
One of my exes was from Latin America and had a rather thick accent. Early in the relationship he said that he wanted me to correct his pronunciation, so he could learn to speak like a Mid-West American. I agreed that I would. Shortly thereafter he said the word “worst,” but he pronounced it with a vowel sound like “war.” So I corrected him. He became very angry, saying that I was poking fun of his accent.
Just one of the many reasons he became my ex.
People mis-pronounce/mis-hear my name regularly. I only correct them if it is likely that I will run into to them again.
Most of the time, if someone misunderstands what I’ve said, I’ll correct them by taking the blame for it. Like in the OP’s situation, after we had talked for a while and I realized that she was thinking Grand Canyon and I was thinking Grand Cayman, I’d say, “You know, I just realized that when I said where I was going I probably said Grand Canyon and I meant Grand Cayman! I do that all the time!” Then we can laugh about the misunderstanding and everyone wins.
But OP, I would get a kick out of you coming up and saying that you just realized you had it wrong. I think it’s fun to admit when we’re wrong, or when our brains go off on some weird tangent. That might just be me.
I don’t usually correct my name, though. I shall go to my grave with half of the people I’ve ever met convinced by name is actually Judy. (It’s Julie.)
Than.