My husband is constantly correcting my pronunciation.

[Estilou]

I am from a nice area and I think if you spoke to me you would think I spoke quite nicely or would say just normally. I have no accent. However my husband is constantly correcting me. He says I am dropping my 'h's. I am finding it difficult to have a normal conversation with him because every time we are just chatting away normally he will correct me which really grates on me and ruins the flow of conversation.

I am also on maternity leave so often he is the only adult I speak to all day, so to not be able to have a normal conversation with even him is getting me down. We have been married quite a number of years but this problem seems to have got worse in the last 12 months. He says because my speech has deteriorated and he doesn't want our children to pick up my poor prenunciation.

I tried to speak to him today about it but he said I was being ridiculous and starting an argument over nothing and being over sensitive.

Any advice on what to do about this.

[Joan0fArc]

He sounds awful. You'll end up with a stutter if you can't get to the end of a sentence without being corrected.

[WhatWouldCoachBombayDo]

Tell him if he carries on, you will just have to "pronounce" him as ex Husband, make sure to emphasise the ex and that all important "H" and tell him to pack it in,you are an adult not a child, I'm pretty sure others understand you when speaking.

[MarklahMarklah]

I think you should develop some form of automatic and involuntary response where you punch him in the face every time he corrects you.

Please note - I am NOT serious.

[seven201]

My husband says 'ain't' a lot and it silently drives me mad. Since having a baby it drives me even more crazy as I don't want my dd to eventually pick up the habit, but I know not to bloody bring it up all the time! Your husband is being a nob. Tell him so.

[GoldFishFingerz]

I think his correction would make me speak cockney or brummie just to wind him up.

[wtffgs]

Yuk! I teach primary kids so do quite a bit of correction and sometimes pull my own kids up on it (8 & 10). I would go batshit if another adult tried to change the way I speak. Does this nobbishness extend to other areas of his behaviour?

[GoldFishFingerz]

Every time he corrects you, drop your T's for the rest of the conversation. Then if he makes a fuss, next drop your R's

[GoldFishFingerz]

Or just stop the conversation completely when he does it. Go off calmly and do your own thing.

[gamerchick]

Yeah actually my first thought was as above... Punch him every time he does it, like that laggy band aversion therapy thing.

[TwoWeeksInCyprus]

Phone a friend and have a nice chat with them instead.

Who on earth does he think he is?!

[leaveittothediva]

That's the one thing I absolutely hate, unless you are having a hard time understanding someone, shut your mouth, and don't be correcting them. He's rude and he's being a twat. I've always found a Newcastle accent very difficult to understand, but I've just sat there and smiled, and hoped to God, that they wouldn't think I was rude. (I'm not being offensive to anyone from Newcastle by the way either).

[wobblywonderwoman]

That's awful but my mothet pills me up on this type of thing (more local teang I have picked up having lived 20 years here)

Its horrible and demeaning. He is pegging you down and I wouldn't be long telling him to shut up or you won't speak to him again

[wobblywonderwoman]

Picks

Twang .. Grr

[RockinHippy]

He is behaving like a first class patronising nob-jockey !

Forget trying to talk to him about this, he's made it clear there is no point as he minimised your efforts in earlier attempts at the conversation. You need to get your "how fucking dare you" head on & put him back in his place!!

My own DH did something similar way back, not speech, but a similar sort of bossy, patronising shit. Apart from looking him right in the eye & quietly but very angrily calling him out on it every time he did it, I started doing it back to him.

He must have plenty of irritating habits too, even if they don't normally bother you so much, start pulling him up & patronising him on every single one of them, be very pointed about it, look him defiantly in the eyes etc - trust me, he will soon get the point & stop - good luck

[CurlyhairedAssassin]

Dropping h's doesn't really bother me. Incorrect use of grammar does. DH has a habit of saying "you was" to the kids. He doesn't always say it with me and I'm pretty sure he doesn't use it in work. It's not even all the time to the kids. I've noticed his dad does it but his mum doesn't so he gets it from his dad. And I don't want it to be passed down again. If the kids pick it up and start using it in written work in school I wouldn't be happy, so I'm afraid I do correct him in front of the kids and tell them not to copy Dad. His usual response is to roll his eyes and start using an over the top posh voice for the next few sentences. I roll my eyes back at him and then it is forgotten about. Till he does it next time!

[CocktailQueen]

Ooh. I don't like this - but tbh if dh says something wrong I will his correct his grammar. Eg if he says - I did this quick - I will say 'quickly', and if he says I rung, I will say. 'Rang'. So, sitting on the fence here...

[crazycatguy]

I'm Canadian. I'm regularly called out on pronunciation or use of words by snooty (generally elderly) people who clearly have nothing better to do with their lives.

Words are used for communication and understanding. If they know the word well enough to correct you on your usage or pronunciation, then your objective of using that word or pronunciation succeeded.

Fuck off, fook off or furk off. They all mean the same thing and are understood by all.

[Sgtmajormummy]

"Are you even listening to what I have to say or are you more interested in being a twat pronunciation policeman?"

I actually said "being obtuse". Work colleague.

[VforVienetta]

I know it's rude and somewhat disrespectful but I've found myself correcting DH a bit recently - he works in construction and goes very Laaahndan when he's speaking to workmates, and it's creeping over into his normal voice more and more these days. It gets on my nerves, as the DC pick it up and I'm trying to get DS1 to annunciate more clearly as it is.

[Newtoday]

He's not correcting your pronunciation. You cannot correct the general pronunciation of a native speaker adult. You are not speaking incorrectly. PhD in linguistics here. Native speakers are, in fact, capable of speaking many dialects and often knowing when to speak which and using that knowledge is as advantageous to the brain as bilingualism (take note vfor!)

He's being a disrespectful knob.

[hardtopinpoint]

Why are you letting him? Tell him to fuck off every time he does it.

[Believeitornot]

That's pretty shitty Curly. Undermine and belittle your dh in front of the kids? Why not have a quiet word with him privately and explain it?

OP - your dh sounds awful. My dh does that sometimes - or did. He's not so bad now because I've told him that I think that he thinks I'm stupid and he was quite mortified. His family all do it - jump on each other if they say something incorrectly. It just stilts conversation and puts you on edge. I also ask him not to do it to the DCs because I don't want them to grow up feeling they have to think very carefully about what they say vevause they don't want to look stupid.

[VashtaNerada]

I have to be so careful I don't do this to DH - he picks up lots of Amercian pronounciations from TV ("vayse" instead of "varse" for vase; the letter "zee" instead of "zed"; "zeebra" rather than "zebra"). It's obviously not incorrect if you're American but we have no ties there whatsoever, and it's really jarring in his otherwise London accent.
BUT... I do really try not to be a dick about it and just let it go. He's dyslexic which I think has something to do with it and really can't help it.

[CurlyhairedAssassin]

Believe: "Why not have a quiet word with him privately and explain it?" I don't need to explain it as he knows what the correct version is. He CHOOSES to use the incorrect version sometimes, mostly to the kids. Which to be honest, I think is shittier than me correcting him!