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.

What sort of beast is a Chesterfield then? I'm imagining a long-haired llama type thing.

I was imagining a long-haired breed of dog, actually. But I like the llama idea!

Loo is not 'upper class'.

Yup. The upper classes just say 'I'm orf for a piss'

I find what? really really rude

I prefer what? to pardon. But definitely what? not Wha'? !

I'm from a typical middle-class family but have ALWAYS hated 'pardon', even as a child and refused to ever say it! Got me in trouble several times at school and with my mother. I was delighted when I found out this marked me out as upper class!

One of my ancestors was the illegitimate child of a member of the aristocracy so I obviously got those genes!

An American (Louisiana) I knew said "say what?"

I suppose your choice for both what/loo & pardon/toilet is governed by what you fear most - sounding mimsy and prim (loathed by upper middle classes) - or coarse and rude (big lower-middle horror.)

I secretly love toilet as a verb - 'Have you toileted, Mum'? - it's wince-making, officious, insulting and sounds like care homes. Ideal.

cory.

I don't like toilet. Ds uses it but I think that's because they drum it into them at school.

Pardon is what children say when they've broken wind (either end).

Depending on who is mumbling, I say either "You what?", "Sorry I didn't catch that" or "Speak up child, stop mumbling".

Well I'll clarify.

'What?' might be terribly upper class.

But as I'm not terribly upper class, when people say it, they sound less I didn't quite catch that and more erm, I'm a bit thick, I don't understand what the words coming out of your mouth mean

:o

Around here, what? is certainly not middle or upper class. Its rude and harsh and offensive...like "woch/k!" or wha". Awful!

I say Settee.
(i'm aware that makes me very common, but the word Sofa is [boak] and Chesterfield is wrong, cos i'd never heard of it...)

Sofa sounds american to me

Skinitting :(

You could do "Please could you repeat that?"

then you're not assigning blame nor taking it.

I was always brought up to say "pardon". Can't see whats wrong with it in all honesty and have passed this onto the kids.

Ds is a nightmare (I blame preschool) and often bellows "what", to which I reply, you mean pardon .

I don;t think its posh at all....

Is Nancy Mitford's ghost posting all over MN today.

OK here's the test to see if you're a pleb or not

I know it should be "What" not "Pardon" but agree with others than "What" seems to sound very abrupt.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" sounds better to my ear.

I was brought up saying 'what?' and upon moving to England, was ordered to say 'pardon' by teachers. Then at 18, my tutor at university raised his eyebrow and said, "Pardon is not a recognized word in this room".

Since then - 'what'. Simply for fear that an ancient old academic (that I adore) may somehow get wind of it!

Agree with cyrilsneer, although I know that the truly posh members of my extended family (I am a downwardly mobile black sheep) do say "What?".

Isn't saying "Pardon" just short for saying "I beg your pardon" which is effectively the same as "Sorry"? Just a thought for those who don't like to think they're apologising..

exactly Stropp.
that's exactly the point.

Pardon is from "pardonnez moi", isn't it?

Which is "forgive me", isn't it?

'What?' is very abrupt and ambiguous imo. DS2 had a habit of saying 'what' but it could mean 'what do you mean?', 'what do you want?' or 'what did you say?' I was forever asking whether he didn't understand or whether he actually hadn't heard. Thankfully he no longer uses 'what' much any more.

At least pardon is unambiguous plus it is a lot less harsh.

Bellowing 'what' always make me think of old upper class 'gentlemen' talking down to the servants.

I'm so glad that this thread exists. I have always preferred 'what' (with or without glottal stop, I'm not fussed) and have never understood why adults insisit on children saying 'pardon'. Although nobody actually tried to teach me to say 'pardon' fortunately. 'What' makes far more sense as it is short for 'what did you say' rather than 'pardon' which means 'sorry'.