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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

for being a tad annoyed at having my English corrected by my daughter's non-native English speaking boyfriend?

89 replies

Kladdkaka · 29/10/2011 19:32

Cheeky bloomin sod. Even though he may in fact be correct.

I was faffing around passed him my daughter's school bag to take upstairs as he went. I said 'Take her the bag.' He laughed at me and asked what sort of rubbish English was that. Apparantly my sentence was grammatically incorrect. He says I should have said 'Take the bag to her'. I then handed him a book about Warwick Castle, asked him to pronounce it, laughed at him and told him to come back when he's spent longer than 2 weeks in the UK.:o

So, MN jury, do I tell him that you all agree with me that my sentence was perfectly acceptable? Or do I lie to him and tell him that you all agree with me that my sentence was perfectly acceptable? :o

OP posts:

PeelThemWithTheirMetalKnives · 29/10/2011 21:04

Thanks Nearly. I thought it wasn't wrong, but I didn't know why

PollyMorfic · 29/10/2011 21:09

Is the boyfriend German, by any chance? Just guessing...

edam · 29/10/2011 21:11

Repeat Nearlylegless's post to him until he gives in and admits you are (she is) right.

Kakapo, it is entirely reasonable to pay someone back in their own coin. Kladd's dd's boyfriend is a. wrong and b. extremely cheeky, trying to correct someone whose first language is English. Especially as she's his girlfriend's Mother, fgs.

Even had Kladd been speaking colloquial English, which she wasn't, he'd still have been rude. Native speakers often don't obey the rules set by teachers of English (or any other language) as a foreign language. Parisiens aren't restricted to the French taught in English schoolrooms.

edam · 29/10/2011 21:12

(Although if you'd left a gnat's crotchet of a pause between 'her' and 'the bag' it could have been very different... 'take her, the bag!'.)

diddl · 29/10/2011 21:13

Well I certainly wouldn´t call it "rubbish English", but it does sound more like a command than a request.

peasandlove · 29/10/2011 21:14

Phew, I did start to wonder if we were taught different English in NZ

HecateGoddessOfTheNight · 29/10/2011 21:15

YANBU. It was rude.

It is a parent's role to correct grammar. They are charged with teaching their children things like language.

It is not the role of some bloke knocking off your daughter to try to give you grammar lessons.

Mind you, my husband is not english and when we were first together we had an almighty row about the pronunciation of shepherd.

He said shefferd. I told him it was shepherd.

He argued. For ages ph = f therefore shepherd is pronounced sheffherd.

And then I explained that it comes from sheep herdsman. sheepherdsman sheepherd shepherd. so it's shep-herd

latrucha · 29/10/2011 21:21

My DH, who is 'foreign' (although not to me and our children ) sometimes asks me if the English I have used is correct. This is not rude. 'What kind of rubbish English is that' is rude whether he is right or wrong.

LesserOfTwoWeevils · 29/10/2011 22:09

YANBU.
Your version was just as correct and more idiomatic than his.

FairPhyllis · 29/10/2011 22:47

YANBU. I am doing a PhD in linguistics and what you said is a grammatical sentence of English. English (and many other languages) have what is called a 'double object' construction. Verbs like 'give', 'lend', 'tell' etc. are what we call ditransitive verbs, because they can take two objects.

He sounds pretty insufferable tbh.

Snowgirl1 · 29/10/2011 23:09

Can someone who knows more about grammar than me say whether "the cats need fed" is incorrect grammatically? My DH says it is. He says that I should say "the cats need to be fed". The 'to be' seems implicit to me. Always wondered who's right...

EllaDee · 29/10/2011 23:14

Yes, it is technically incorrect IMO - and grating because it sounds as if you think 'fed' is a noun they need.

But I don't see the problem as long as you wouldn't write it - contractions and omissions are normal in speech surely.

whatdoiknowanyway · 29/10/2011 23:24

I was once congratulated by my boss on my excellent vocabulary.
Apparently not many English people had such a good command of the language.

I am a graduate of one of the top universities in the UK (albeit a long time ago when it was easier to get in :)).

I was working for a major blue chip company which had very demanding recruitment procedures for its managers.

My work required an excellent use of language.

I was ten years older than him.

And he was Dutch. Still don't know why he thought he was qualified to pat me on the head for, in his opinion, almost being as good at English as he was.

PigletJohn · 29/10/2011 23:33

"I was ten years older than him."

you probably still are.

edam · 29/10/2011 23:46

Unless he died, Piglet.

proudfoot · 29/10/2011 23:58

"Take her the bag" is correct so YANBU and he was being rude and irritating.

TalcAndTurnips · 29/10/2011 23:58

My daughter's Croatian friend insisted I was wrong in the "Fred and I went to town" and "Come to town with Fred and me" distinction; she stated that her tutor at university taught that "Fred and I" was correct in every case, and he should know

She may be a fluent and confident English speaker; but at 19 I wouldn't be lecturing a mature adult, with a reasonable grasp of her native language, in the finer points of correct English.

I never managed to convince her otherwise. Oh, the arrogance of youth!

LineRunnerWitchyMother · 30/10/2011 00:06

John Cleese as the centurion:

Motion towards, motion towards!

LineRunnerWitchyMother · 30/10/2011 00:07

(and actually it affects declension of the noun....)

FruitChute · 30/10/2011 00:14

I don't think it matters if he's a native English speaker or not. He was rude to correct you.

FairPhyllis · 30/10/2011 05:08

Snowgirl A sentence like 'the cats need fed' is grammatical in some dialects of English - it's not in "Standard" British English, which is why it probably sounds strange to you. It is very common in the north Midland of the USA, and is also in Scots English. Different varieties of English can vary quite widely in what kind of syntactic constructions are acceptable in them.

lady007pink · 30/10/2011 07:00

OP, I would probably appear rude too but I'm an aspie (undiagnosed) - I would have become confused by what you said and asked "Do you want me to bring the bag to her?" just to be clear that's what you wanted.

AlpinePony · 30/10/2011 07:18

Yabu.

There's no excuse for sloppy grammar if you're a native speaker.

I've lived and worked overseas for nearly 20 years, my foreign friends don't Fuck up your/you're.

BagofHolly · 30/10/2011 07:20

The cheeky shit. Tell him to go google "varieties of English" and "dialectal English" before he goes further.

Standard English is not the language that the vast majority of speakers use day to day in a familial/informal setting and he's pig ignorant to pick you up on it.

Andrewofgg · 30/10/2011 07:25

I was ten years older than him.

If I were a real pedant I would say that that should be ten years older than he but I'm not so I won't. :)

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