to prefer 'What'? to 'Pardon?'

[wolfhound]

although neither of them are very good. 'Pardon?' sounds a bit Hyacinth Bucket IMO, and 'What?' can sound rude.
What do you teach your DCs to say?
DS1 (3.5) seems to have adopted his own style of bellowing 'Can you say that a bit louder?' which may not be the ideal long term style.

depends who you are talking to

pardon to the boss

you what? to the husband

pardon

I know "what" is U and "pardon" is non-U but both sound wrong, I agree.

How about "sorry?"

YANBU. "Pardon" is a poncenonsense way of saying "What" - almost always used in the mistaken belief that it is more polite and "refained".

Nooooooooooo, I hate 'what?'

I'm still struggling to get the message through to the children though, I seem to bellow

'THE WORD YOU'RE LOOKING FOR IS PARDON!'

a hundred times a day

Sorry could you repeat that please? I didn't quite hear..

'What?' sounds really dumb

What is to lavatory as pardon is to toilet.

...and sitting room is to lounge. Oh fuck. Don't get me started on this route to nowhere...

I'd much rather my children said "pardon?" than "what?" - we're not in the 50s, we're not upper class and nor should we pretend to be. If we're going to get all snobby about it, they already say "toilet", "ice cream", "mirror", "glasses" and "fireplace" and and the sky hasn't fallen on us yet.

Having said all that, I usually say "sorry?" in any case.

Wouldn't mind "what" if it did actually end with an audible "t", and wasn't accompanied by a slack jaw and glazed look...

StigoftheBump you've met my children then :o

I'm intrigued to know what the 'posh' equivalents of ice cream and fireplace are - dead common, me!

I'm not fond of either what or pardon - pardon sounds pretentious and what sounds rude. I usually go for sorry or something along those lines.

I will be teaching What? because Pardon? just sounds wrong.

I have to admit, I wasn't taught either when I was a child (common as muck! )
and I think I might have shocked my Junior Chorister the other week when he said "eh?" and I said "it's not Eh?, it's What?" in front of other people who may have been taught differently (including his mum, who had said Pardon? to him earlier in the session )

"Ice" and "chimneypiece", MissRead.

Agree with Katisha

And with Stig - 'Wha ... ?' with glottal stop sounds horrible.

Pardon implies that it's your fault you haven't heard, when invariably, it's becausethe person who is speaking to you hasn't made themselves heard/understandable.

It is never the hearer's fault that they didn't hear or understand, and always the person speaking.

Please let us not pass the "serviettes" around. Especially if one has had hot cross buns for breakfast...

I prefer what, for the Hyacinth Bucket reasons mentioned above. Hate 'sorry?', although I sometimes involuntarily come out with it (I think I must have been taught it in childhood, although I don't remember, and it still lurks in my subconscious.

I don't mind 'say again?'. Thoughts?

As well as being more U, "what" is from Old English and more Germanic, while "pardon" is from Norman French. Just a thought.

I use either "pardon", or "sorry"...
DS (3.3) will say "what", remember what he's supposed to say and say "pardon"...
And he corrected some chav the other day, who responded to some girl in the shop with "what?" He seemed quite alarmed and embarrassed to her some 3 year old tell him "It's not what, It's 'Cardon'*"
*Cardon is DS's mispronounciation...

Eh?

Yes, I think I tend to say 'Sorry?' Not sure it's ideal for young children though, as they don't get the intonation right and it's not clear what they mean. Hmm. Perhaps will continue leaving it to DS to work out his own method...

'what' really grates on me, DS1 does it a lot, and although I'm not that fond of 'pardon' it does sound a bit more polite.

I don't care if it is U or non U-what sounds rude.