I correct my students inside the classroom, but not usually outside of the classroom if their meaning is clear enough.
I wouldn’t dream of correcting anyone else. There are people who do this? Do they manage to keep their friends for long?
I correct the mistakes of adults, but only if I know them well, I know it was a genuine mistake, and I know they aren’t going to be offended.
A lot of my conversations involve people who are using a 2nd (3rd, 4th…) language; often, the same people whose written documents I’m expected to review as part of my duties for the team. These are people who want to improve their usage / grammar / pronunciation and to be as close to “standard” as possible. I do not correct the mistakes of children I don’t know and who aren’t adressing me, any more than I would do it for adults I don’t know.
I would never dream of correcting a native speaker of English in English. I do occasionally correct native speakers of Spanish in Spanish, but it’s got to be something pretty egregious along the lines of signing off letters to clients with “XXXOOOXXX thxby”.
I voted for “I correct the mistakes of MY children, MY minor relatives, and MY students,” but there’s one exceptional case: One of my oldest friends has a reader’s vocabulary. That is, she reads voraciously, but isn’t formally educated, and she sometimes mispronounces words - like “stead” as a homophone of “steed.” With her permission and her blessing, I quietly correct those occasional mispronunciations, because she prefers to be understood.
(Of course, now that I think of it, I do sometimes correct total strangers, but only on regional pronunciations - particularly place names. I work in the hospitality industry, and people often ask me for directions to places like Tybee Island - properly “tie-bee,” or nearby Houston Street or Houston County - here, it’s “house-ton,” like the street from New York, not the city in Texas. And don’t get me started on the myriad ways people can butcher the word “Coosawhatchie!”))
I correct anyone at all if circumstances let me believe that I can do it in a casual manner. Otherwise I shut up. If people call me by the wrong name I don’t correct them if there is no need to.
Like even sven, I correct my students while in a learning context.
One option you left out is that I will correct those who ask for my help. My mom has a tin ear and frequently mispronounces or misuses words. She’s aware of it, and she hates it. So, when we’re talking one on one, I will correct her pronunciation and usage. I don’t do it in front of others, unless they know both me and my mom well enough to understand the dynamic.
I also, occasionally, get asked by coworkers, fellow church members, or others to explain matters like infer/imply, except/accept, and effect/affect. One friend once asked me how to spell the “Specific Ocean”. After clarifying that she meant the very large body of water off the coast of California, I explained “Pacific” versus “specific”.
I do try very, very hard not to correct others without being asked. I had one lady go off on me once because I ended a sentence with a preposition (Me! An English teacher!). To this day, I still go on imaginary rants at her about the difference between formal writing and informal speaking, the history of English grammar, and the complete idiocy of applying Latin grammar norms to English.
Which reminds me of one I have to share. Several years ago, we heard a Public Radio newsreader (local person, local news) who was clearly not cut out for a job that involved reading aloud. The high/low point was when she hesitated for several seconds, then tentatively pronounced “bonanza” as…
“bone ZANNA”
:smack::smack::smack:
.
I correct the American English of people who ask me to do so, and answer their questions when they come up. There are not very many but some. I once managed to teach an adult native speaker of Dutch to consistently make the "th"sound – though she has not yet managed to teach me to consistently use the “ui” sound. I beat it about two falls out of three.
However, I am in the interesting position of being one of two Americans living in a relatively small city in Holland,and the other was brought up bilingual Dutch/American. So I get referred to as “the American” and everybody in town knows who they mean. Lots of Brits around but I have become the go to guy for questions about the 'merrikins. The Dutch are taught proper English but consume huge amounts of US media so the subject comes up regularly.
I have an ex-girlfriend who used to get furious because I did NOT correct her grammar. She felt that I was allowing her to sound stupid on purpose.
My siblings (well, one in particular, who I know is doing it for effect and the effect is stupid) will probably get corrected followed by “you weren’t raised in a barn” (or “by wolves”).
Other adults, no. I probably shouldn’t do it to the siblings either, but they know better and it is a really stupid effect.
I never do it unless I’m asked to do so. Language is primarily about effective communication to me, so as long as I can easily understand you, I’m not really going to get bent out of shape about the technique you use. Within reason, of course.
No. Not only is that kind of thing rude and annoying, but I have my own fluency issues (stammering, cluttering, etc). Sometimes when I’m speaking off the cuff, I’ll misplace a syllable (“relevation” instead of “revelation”), slur a word, drop in the wrong verb (“If I was” instead of “If I were”), use an adjective instead of an adverb (“she moved slow” instead of “she moved slowly”), or totally avoid certain words out of fear of stuttering. To make matters worse, I will often self-correct in mid-sentence, impeding my communication further. I generally have to speak like a robot–slow and stilted–if I want to sound like an intelligent person.
I’m a very right-brained speaker and it doesn’t help my self-consciousness that I’m always surrounded by eloquent speakers. I’m much more concerned about what someone is saying than how they’re saying it. I wish everyone was like this.
I don’t like the idea of someone studying every nuance of my communication, so I wouldn’t want to do the same thing to someone else’s.
I voted people I know well – but really, only if they’re people who might be interested professionally or might have some kind of personal interest in continuing a discussion on a particular point.
And only when it’s a question of a real “mistake” – meaning something worth talking about – and not a genuine or obviously idiomatic way of putting things. Saying “ain’t” in a conversation could never be a mistake, unless used without affection – to show someone up to their face, for example. I’d correct someone like Alan Alda saying “prosesseez” in all of those PBS thingies because the response would be a mild <insert Alda voice>, and it’s a good example of an illiteratism used probably unconsciously by people trying to sound smart.
I’ve been corrected as an adult, accepting the correction, only to later discover that my pronounciation wasn’t incorrect but was, in fact, a legitimate alternate pronounciation*. So, no, I won’t correct an adult or someone else’s child unless I’m a close friend of said child’s parents. As others have said before, it’s rude.
*One word in particular was mythos. I still pronounce it the way I was “corrected”, and that bothers me.
I correct my little girl’s mistakes because it’s my job. I don’t do it so much with my oldest daughter because she does it to me first and I find it annoying.
I do correct my Mig because he wants me to help him with English. It’s his third language and although he’s fairly fluent he still makes a mistake now and then.
Any other time I feel it’s rude to call attention to another person’s errors.
Not unless I’m purposely trying to be a dick. There are very few people I know who I think would appreciate that kind of thing, but as a rule, it’s rude.
So, do you say it like it’s an operating system (Myth OS) or a breakfast cereal (Myth ohs)?
As for me: In school I would correct the teachers or someone who was acting like they knew more than I. But I even got over that, and now I don’t correct people unless it’s just to figure out what the heck they are saying. Though I will often look at them funny, as I still have to fix it in my head before I can process it.
Every time I hear someone correct someone else’s grammar, I cringe in embarrassment; for the corrector, not the correctee.
I have been noticing lately just how much not only my mom and dad taught me about manners, but also how often I find myself referring to Ms. Manners columns.
Anyways, I know folks say language is always changing, and as long as we are understood, it’s not ‘incorrect’, but how far is too far, if there is any such thing. I have brought this up before on these boards, but don’t remember the answer, but; in my job, I hear a lot of southern and black customers saying ‘compooter’ and ‘compruter’ and ‘comperter’ when they mean ‘computer’…is that ‘incorrect’ or is that acceptable dialect, since I know what they are saying
And to ramble on a bit more, why do people keep bringing up the ‘ax/ask’ thing? It is an acceptable form of the word. It is how lots of black folks say it, more and more white folks say it, and it goes back in history for centuries. Enough already with that one, in every language thread.
I sometimes do, if I think it will be helpful and/or funny.
I only correct children, but only the children of friends who I know well – and who I know would not make the same error themselves (e.g., if the parents would say “her and me” I won’t correct that in the child, but if the child says “her and me” by mistake – just because he/she is a child – I’ll correct the error).
The only adults I have ever corrected were fellow editors, and those were just lighthearted corrections regarding one-time errors. We all have slips of the tongue, and in a group of folks who get paid to have proper grammar we’ll often tease each other about mistakes – usually in the form of repeating the mistake with a smile and an implied question mark. 
I once heard Casey Kasem – on one of his syndicated radio shows – pronounce “triskaidekaphobia” as TRY-SKY-dekaphobia. That was years ago, and I still can’t get over it.
Acceptable according to who/what? Is there a non-urban dictionary out there that lists “axe” as an alternate pronunciation? Just because something is common doesn’t mean it’s correct. It’s a dialect, not standard English.
If editing writing/text doesn’t count, then no, I don’t. However, I do cringe on occasion when I hear people bastardize basic English.