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!

I asked MCDs if they did Hollandaise when I bought an Egg McMuffin the other week

They don't and if you ask them, they look at you like this

I hear pardon and cringe. MIL tried to teach the DDs to say it instead of what/sorry nooooooo

Im with Jilly Cooper "my mummy says pardon is a much worse word than fuck"

Is this an English thing then?

People say either what, pardon, sorry, huh, eh.

Don't think it matters, its never an indicator of poshness, how odd.

This obsession with class doesn't happen in the other countries in the UK. It's most unbecoming.

I think "what" is a bit rude but wouldn't bat an eyelid if a 4 year old said it.

My DC say "what did you say?"

The snobbery about 'pardon' and a whole list of other words is essentially rooted in the (perennial) anti-French attitudes of the English upper class: all the 'non-U'/'common' words have French roots, and the 'U'/'posh' words don't:

pardon (French) - what (Germanic)
toilet (F) - lavatory (Latinate)
couch (F) - sofa (Turkish)
serviette (F) - napkin (Old English)
perfume (F) - scent (L.)
mirror (F) - looking glass (OE/G)
lounge (F) - sitting room (OE/G)
dessert (F) - pudding (G)
cemetery (F) - graveyard (OE)

Loo, funnily enough, is an exception to this rule: its root is the French word "l'eau".

Funny, I say sorry, but it wouldn't bother me what my kids say. So long as they never, ever say 'ta'.

Wow I am COMMON!

The class hierarchy in England is fascinating. The only country in the world where your social status can be altered by going to a slightly less expensive private school.

Wales doesn't have real posh people or aristocracy. Hasn't for hundreds of years. We have wealthy people and poor people but there's nothing like the same kind of hierarchy and issues as there are in England.

I'm rather surprised that some here view pardon as common or odd to say. Having been to finishing school, (a very odd gift off my nan after her death) and worked in various er posher places connected to extremely titled people "pardon" was always said. I guess this is inverted snobbery or classism is it? Very curious....

YAB completely u. And a snob. And rude.

Imvvho.

LaC, I guess 'finishing schools' are by their very nature 'non-U', because people who are naturally posh don't need to be 'finished'!
What utter madness it all is!

Looking at the list above it also has a north/south bias as well. The so called 'posh' versions are very northern.
I'd never heard of a lounge until I moved to the midlands and as for dessert we were always taught that the dessert course was when they served fruit.
You only find a couch in a doctors surgery and as for serviettes my mother would turn in her grave if she knew we were using tissue paper rather than the good linen!
Perhaps I'm just a posh northerner although many would disagree.

Wow, mumsnet is such an education, I've always said 'what?' or sometimes if pushed 'sorry?' and felt guilty for pushing my common ways on dd... But its not common? Yes! Get in there.... We'll be what what-ing to our hearts content now. Thankyou mn!

Never pardon and never correct anyone else except your own child.

I am posher than posh. The only one I don't say is glass for mirror.

'Dessert' 'toilet' and 'pardon' are the top three offenders imo.

hate pardon, think it can sound very passive agressive

Agree jingle

Oh and nobody passes on or passes away.

They DIE.

Actually thinking about it,I don't say pardon. But I don't say what either.

And I hate passed away. They died.

Alisvolatpropiis my mum is Welsh and she is one of the most class aware people I know - by nature lower middle class, but in a job that would on its own be upper middle, and she is very Hyacinth Bucket in her inability to stop herself name dropping the 3 impoverished but titled elderly ladies she knows and refering to them by their titles with a simper It may be because she has lived in England most of her adult life, but she makes me doubt there is no class system in Wales!

If the OP was rude her SIL was equally or (IMO) more so because it was the SIL who initially corrected the OP's child! I would also point out that I allowed my child to use a word if somebody else was unpleasant enough to correct my child's choice of words in front of me, except in extreme cases it is surely never acceptable to tell somebody else's child off for what you personally consider an infraction of manners in front of a parent?

Reminds me of the time my mum overheard a parent berating a child at her secondary school's parent evening: "Don't say 'eh', say 'whit' [sic]"