and possibly PFB about nursery teaching DS to say "ta"?

[missmargot]

Hearing adults saying to babies and children "say taaaaaa" whenever they give them something has long been a pet hate of mine, it gives me the absolute rage.

Twice this week I've heard different people at nursery say this to DS and it's made me shudder.

This isn't about me wanting DS (15 months) to say the full 'thank you' on his first attempt, he will make whatever sounds he wants to for the words as he does with everything else and that's fine, what I hate is him being taught that the word is 'ta' in the first place.

Would IBU to say something to nursery about this? I am severely sleep deprived at the moment so fully prepared to be told that I am being PFB and be handed a grip, but honestly had I have heard the word 'ta' being used at nursery when we looked around I would have thought twice about sending him there.

Edith- fabulous. Going to actively encourage fuck you with DS. have already accidentally taught DD2 to swear.

My MIL does the hand out ta thing too. I breathe deeply and ignore. It reminds me of the phase when DD2 was keen on 'share '

Mine were at a REALLY posh nursery. It was lovely in every way. But some of the nursery nurses did say ta.

It starts with 'ta' and before you know it your PFB will be saying 'hiya'.

An elderly and extremely grand relative of mine once ranted for half an hour about how the shop assistant on the till in Waitrose had greeted her with hiya.

IN WAITROSE!!!

It's an acceptable stage in language development for a baby in my opinion; it's about communication. My mil corrected me when I said ta to my own babies, now that pissed me off!
Mine all say thank you now.

Surely this has always been the issue with common people carrying out child care for the middle classes.

Isn't this why they then get sent to public schools to make sure this gutter language is stamped upon, to ensure the class system is not thrown into utter chaos.

Get a nanny. That way you can control the spoken vocabulary closer. Why can't you just be pleased he goes to loving nursery. Christ, life is too short

'Ta' is a lovely word, it's very friendly sounding.

Silver that's not the case for us, we are 'lower working class' and I still dislike my children learning words like 'ta' 'belly' etc class doesn't change that children should be taught the correct use of the English language imo

I was joking, I think.

The point is children need to grow up in the society they live within. They will have all sorts of language influences from the moment they are born. We learn to adapt and use different words, accents and styles depending on the environment and people we are mixing with. Saying Ta at nursery and thank you at home is just the first step in this learning process.

Bless my mum, aspiring working class had obviously heard Pardon was non-U so used to tell us to say "no, it's I beg your pardon". Fortunately I went to a naice grammar school and learn to say excuse me!

Please to see Mumsnet spellcheck will not accept Ta unless it has a capital letter though.

genuine question. What's wrong with pardon? to all the posters who hate it. Seems like a fairly inoffensive word.

My mum used to give us a clip round the ear and say 'it's pardon, not what!'
It were all fields around here then too.

saoirse- it's another snobby thing, words deriving from French were historically considered posh, and then for some reason, thinking changed, and they became the province of wannabe posh people. So, words like serviette is baaaaaadder than a bad thing, whilst napkin is OK.

Quite frankly, ain't life hard enough without being so utterly bonkers as to think it matters what you call your sofa/settee (another absolute minefield)

I hope all the ta-haters reprimanded their small children when they made their first utterances, y'know the da/ma thing for (as parents believe, but which isn't actually true) daddy and mummy. The common little tykes what ho.

Reminds me of the carry on film 'taaaaa, daddy'.

ah.. Thanks! ! never heard that before! ! people are strange....

The sentiment is more important than the word itself. Your child will take to 'thank you' more readily when older, as good manners have been instilled from an early age. YABU.

I'm a grown up and I say "ta" for "thanks" sometimes. AIBU? Sometimes I say "cheers". Is this U?
Is it any different from teaching children to say "hi" or "bye", which many people do? All slang?
My own dd, though taught by nursery (and my stirling example) to say "ta", in fact for a long time said "cashew" for thank you. She'd occasionally spice it up with "ganshu". Both were less recognisable as a form of thanks than "ta".

So do I, Lovely. We must be awfully common.

Jilly Cooper once quoted someone who believed that 'pardon' was a much worse word than 'fuck.'

A (distant!) relative of mine once said to her dd "Don't say what, say pardon," and both my dcs gleefully swivelled their eyes straight around to me to see if I had the balls to say the opposite!

It's really not an issue. Neither of the elder DC have had any problem unlearning ta just as they had no problem unlearning any baby words or the use of their name instead of I. Much harder is instilling the basic instinct to be good mannered and say please and thank you. If ta helps instil this then what is the problem? If you're really so terrified to be thought common then you must have a terrible inferiority complex.

Our nursery taught Dd to say ta. Was grateful for it as she couldn't manage thank you at a v young age but I wanted her to get into the habit of polite fully acknowledging things being given to her. Now she's two and says 'fank soo' instead of ta. You need to get a real problem tbh.

Well I never. It's from the Danish tak meaning thank you.

See? Little common snotty nosed Tarquin is actually already speaking a really cool foreign language. Taught to him at nursery......

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_and_non-U_English

Quite an interesting page on Wiki. Non-U terms started off as a light-hearted take on the way middle classes adopted French terminology for certain words whilst the Upper Classes (U) preferred more plain terminology. It is quite an interesting part of the English class system the the working classes and upper classes share more in common and are more comfortable with who they are than the angst ridden middle class.

I still struggle with when to say loo, toilet, ladies, rest room or carsey!

Gosh, not sure how or why this turned into a class debate. I'm fairly certain I didn't say at any point that I was middle class or that the women working at the nursery are of a lower class

Having read all of the replies I accept that IWBU to say something so I will continue to quietly seethe ignore it. I've got a good relationship with the nursery and given I'm fairly laid back about most things I don't want to damage my relationship with them or get a reputation for being one of 'those' parents.

Clearly I'm an idiot but why can't we say pardon? If you don't hear someone and need them to repeat I've always been taught to say pardon. What memo have I missed this time?

Because "pardon" is what horrible lower class people say when they are trying to sound all naice.