To have told SIL "no...NOT Pardon!"?

[MrsMushroom]

We're abroad with DHs family.

DD aged 4 didn't hear something SIL said.....DD said "What?" and SIL said "WHAT? WHAT??? I think you mean PARDON don't you?"

I HAD to say..."No...in England "what" is fine. Or If you prefer..."sorry, I didn't catch that."

Was I rude? I just don't want DD saying "Pardon" or even worse "P'don"

Oh and Merry Christmas everyone!

Fucking WHAT is indeed what it should be

This is one of the strangest threads! I have never heard of pardon being common, how funny! Saying what is very rude and I would never repeat myself if someone said that to me! Anything else acceptable, 'what' just plain fucking rude!

Can you imagine Kim? It would be like this

Blah blah blah

What?

You mean pardon surely?

What?

Pardon!

why what have you done?

pardon is Hyacinth Bucket. Like serviettes. what sounds a bit abrupt for most people's ears. I find "sorry what ?" a good alternative

I've always said what so ds grew up saying what. It does sound rude when spoken by a 3 yr old but now he is 8 it sounds better. My dm is always trying to make ds say pardon (I assume my late father said what which must be why I say it).

Op.

You freak

I love MN for the fact that this thread has carried on all of Christmas Day and now into Boxing Day.

I thought of it earlier when playing a word game & my son (10) had to pass as he didn't know the word. It was 'serviette'.

Ds said 'serviette' yesterday. I nearly disowned him

kim47: "If any pupil of mine said "What" to me, I would correct them."

Correct them? According to your opinion? I'd be furious if a teacher "corrected" my child and directed them towards saying something that I had taught them not to say.

Pardon?

Actually, this is much less about 'manners' and much more about class indication and what linguists call 'acts of identity'. (Warning: that link is a lecture in a PDF!)

Whichever word you choose to use, if you want to identify with the person you're speaking to, you'll use the word you think they'll use, or at least accept - you will 'adapt'. And if you don't, you won't.

There are some complex bits of social interaction at play: dominant people are less likely to 'adapt'; so are men, and adults talking to children... And environment has a powerful influence, so people tend to feel uncomfortable if they find themselves in situations where (they think) everyone else will use the word they don't...

My borderline autistic 6 year old got in trouble with his (lovely) y2 teacher for saying 'what'? when addressed.

They discussed an alternative and for reasons beyond my ken came up with 'how may I help you?'

Dont know social ramifications of that: probably indicates that as ever, my DS is in a class of his own

I tend to say 'sorry?', but I never understand why people get so worked up over this type of thing. Because they are just words. Words which we use to convey our meaning. And whether a child says 'what' or 'sorry' or 'pardon', we get the meaning.

It's an interesting observation (I think possibly in Watching the English) that those who tend to get most worked up about these things tend to be aspirational of jumping up a class, or borderline. The truly, truly posh (the sort of people who think that the Queen is a bit vulgar and middle class) tend not to give a flying fuck what anyone else does. It's the people who have taught themselves that it is sofa, and napkin, and scent, (or whose parents strenuously taught them these things) that tend to get most stressed about the whole thing.

kim as a teacher, I too would raise an eyebrow and act upon it if a child responded to me with "what?" in the way you describe. But I would be correcting tone and attitude, not redirecting them to use "pardon" instead.

flow4 You have a point - I am aware of these things partly because I try not to sound like my mother, not really for class reasons but just because :) This has probably odd ramifications, because she herself is a bit of a social climber so her own vocabulary is rather a mix of things her parents said and things she has taught herself to say, and I just tend to say the alternative :) Not with everything obviously but some "key" expressions. I don't say "loo", for example, only because the word conjures up my mother, who loves to over share saying multiple times a day "I'm just going to-da-loo" (which she says that why to sound like the strange informal expression for bye for now). I also can't bring myself to use the term "wee-wee" with my children even when toddlers for the same reason - my mother's tendency to use the term when over sharing what she is going to do when she goes to-da-loo (she is not suffering from dementia or anything, she has always done this)

I live in Germany so I have also half-deliberately developed a tendency to use English words that Germans also use, partly because of the children growing up bilingual... weirdly Germans use both Sofa and Couch when speaking German though

In my experience of being married to a non native English speaker who speaks fluent English, it is not hard for foreigners learning English, because they couldn't care less and say what they were taught in school or heard on their first foreign exchange... Mind you this did lead to my husband insisting on asking for medium-raw steak instead of medium-rare, for years and years...

kim if someone burps or farts you don't say 'Pardon me'. That is drawing attention to it and is rude. You simply ignore it. (sticks nose in air)

Oh, and give the nearest dog/small child a hard glare

Just watching Titanic and Rose misheard Jack and said "beg your pardon?" she is supposedly upper class. Did the script writers of Titanic get their period dialogue wrong? Should she have said "what?"

Definitely should have said What.

Rose was American. Different rules innit.

I say "Soz mate, dint hear ya"

The 'rule'is not to use words that are French or not English in origin therefore toilet, pardon, setee, perfume are not acceptable and more traditional English words should be used instead. Lavatory or Loo, what, sofa and scent.