twix, I specifically thought of you as I wrote the OP, which is why I added the qualifier about HEARING the mistake. If one of my sales reps makes a written grammatical mistake in a proposal, I’m on 'em life fire. But orally? In a private conference, or a team meeting, or in front of a client? Zeus no.
I will correct the mistakes – both spoken and written – of people who report to me, on the assumption that if they make the mistake in speech, they don’t recognize the error and are apt to make it in writing.
You’re right, though, I won’t correct the mistakes of a client or similar other than in writing.
twix, have you never found this
to be true?
Yes, but saying there is an accepted difference between the Mid-Western and British pronunciation of a word that takes into account the use of the letters “b-o-a-r-d,” in that order, is not the same as saying that deriving the pronuniciation “aks,” from the letters “a-s-k,” in that order, by an educated person in such a setting and otherwise seemingly in full of awareness of how English orthography, pronunciation and syntas work is correct style-wise. The equivalent would be “ask” (MW) and “ahsk” (BR) perhaps.[/SANTHT]
More than anything I guess it was just grating and surprising. The pronunciation of “iron” does bring up an interesting question. My less-than-knowledgeable response would be, although the is a difference between orthography and pronunciation, in this case, there is general agreement on the oddness.
Acre. Theatre. Sabre.
I’m sure someone will point out that all those end in re, but my point is that English orthography and pronunciation are…well, let’s say touched. Which, I will point out, does not rhyme with “ed.”
I’ll correct my nieces and nephews, but only because their parents are fully on board with it.
Rarely will I correct another adult, but it has happened. For example, an intern who reported to me made the same “me and her are going to work on it” type error consistently, and it was getting noticed. So I told her she should be careful to avoid that in the future.
True. As Ron White says, there’s no cure for stupidity.
I picked other. I work with a LOT of immigrants, and, IF I KNOW THEM fairly well, I’ll correct them, gently. They always have appreciated it. I won’t correct some random furriner, but people I know, yes.
ETA : Other than that, I never correct people.
Joe
Rarely. Maybe occasionally in a teasing manner, but it would be very rare for me to do it with anyone in a serious way.
Prior to an hour ago, I would have answered “never anyone”. I just returned from the grocery store where some guy was holding up the only checkout line with a complaint about how his coupon was supposedly incorrectly applied, costing him $0.50; normally, I’m all for someone making sure they’re getting every penny they’re entitled to, but he was being very condescending to the poor girl - as I was walking away I heard him say “irregardless”, so I shouted very loudly “irregardless isn’t a word you miserable douche-can!”
(Yes, this was probably uncalled for by me, but there it is.)
ETA: Yes, I also realize that it is actually a word.
As I see others have said above, I usually correct by using it properly soon afterwards and then only my students or minors under my care. It also depends on the setting. I’m not going to correct someone on the beach, but I’ll likely do it in the classroom.
However, I’ll usually gently point out the misuse of words (That word does not mean what you think it means) anywhere and to anyone who won’t get mad at me. I know I’d appreciate it if someone stopped me from embarrassing myself further through misuse.
I don’t necessarily correct every slip of the tongue, but yeah, if I am discussing work-related topics with someone who reports to me and he or she gets something substantially wrong (from an utterly prescriptivist point of view), I will correct him or her – not rudely, and perhaps in private later, but I will correct it. My attention span is long enough to get back to the subject matter after we deal with the grammatical issue.
(If we’re hanging around BSing about last night’s Survivor, of course, I don’t, and that would seem to be more in line with what BlueKangaroo was saying – it can be socially disruptive in casual conversation.)
Someone else mentioned immigrants (or at least persons for whom English is not their mother tongue), and I would call those a special case. It’s been a while since I had any such occasion, but if I were still helping with women refugees from Afghanistan, I would not hesitate to correct usage errors, because it helped them overall, and they were generally grateful. Helping them speak English correctly was implicit in the “assist with assimilation” deal.
*I wasn’t being noble. It was for work. I was and remain a dick. 
Yup, same here. I learned the hard way. I think it is an easy mistake to make growing up. If you’ve been corrected all your life, it’s easy to think that adults correct each other as well. But nope, no way.
Come to think of it, I’ll add it to my list of things that kids should know before leaving their parent’s home.
- Buy new head pillows every year. We just forgot to change yours, but pillows really shouldn’t last your whole life.
- Just because we corrected your grammar mistakes, pushed your hair out of your face, and flipped your laundry labels back in your collar, doesn’t mean it is okay to do that with other adults.
Note that MY JOB is correcting other people’s grammar/mistakes, but on paper, not spoken.
Most of them are lawyers.
Some of them argue with me. They lose.
The whole point of grammar is to make communication clear and unambiguous. It isn’t to be used as a weapon, or to point out how stupid a person is.
For most of my life my friends have been black so they use the “ebonic” dialect or at least the Chicago version of it, and I certainly will ask them if I don’t get what they are saying. And none of them have ever been offended.
They all laugh at me, 'cause I still can’t use the word “finna” correctly (Finna = contracation of fixing to).
The only thing that really bugs me is the interchange of the word “brought and bought” in the Chicago Black dialect. The thing that fascinates me about it, is the usage is never consistant. Sometimes they will use the word correctly and other times not. There never seems to be a rhyme or reason to it.
I correct my students and that’s it. If I ever have kids I’ll be correcting them too. Sometimes my friends and I correct each other and have arguments about grammatical points, but that’s only ever in fun.
I only correct my children, though not all the time. Only when I think I should, and I’m pretty lax. I say ain’t sometimes and they like to giggle at it. Mostly I correct mispronunciations of words–my 9yo has a zillion words she’s read but not heard, so I’m always telling her how to pronounce something. Today it was “graffiti,” which she absolutely murdered. I think she said GRAPH-it-eye.
I hang out online in a MMORPG called EVE Online, with a lot of europeans that speak english with varying degrees of fluency. I will suggest the correct way to phrase something, or the correct tense of a word if I am familiar enough with the person to know that it will not bother them, or if they ask for the correct phrase or word [tonight it was sing/sang/sung]
I will say that I am amazed at one Norwegian I play with, he has absolutely no accent when speaking other than American Midwest [sort of like non pompous newscaster, I guess would be the equivalent], though there is one scotsman from Glasgow that I think is speaking some form of english, but when he gets excited, Ill be damned if I can figure out what he is saying :eek:
I will correct anyone but I don’t do it all the time. I enjoy correcting teenagers because they get so belligerent about it.
I fully expect people to correct me when I make a mistake. I WANT them to.