Fallen out with MIL over manners

[WoeIsMee]

I'm really annoyed. I've NC for this.

My MIL had my children today and they've come back saying 'what' instead of 'pardon.' This is because mil told them that 'what' is correct which is clearly wrong - it's 'pardon.'

I'm really annoyed as correct manners are so important, also it's undermined me.

WIBU to ring her and tell her she's wrong and ask her to tell the children that she was wrong?

"Afters" sums up my pudding/dessert thoughts.

Even if people aren't of the same class, I wouldn't want to do something that many other people perceived to be rude.

Therefore, I have trained myself to say "sorry?".

My ex partner used to always say "pardon", but it used to come out as "pudden" Ds then took to saying this

Every time he said it, we used to say "poo poo says pudden", to try and get him out of the habit. I don't know where the poo poo came from, but it was dh who started it

I call the toilet 'the netty' which always tickles my clients (elderly folk).

Gruntfuttock One should never stand on one's dessert!

I always say pardon, and excuse me, we have breakfast, dinner and tea, I sit on a settee or maybe a sofa, and we eat pudding (unless we are eating out in which case we have dessert).....working class, Northern and proud of it.....I have fabulous family, fabulous friends, a really nice lifestyle and am at the age where I don't judge others for how they speak and I couldn't give a flying fuck what anyone thinks of me

How dare you! ladymariner. I'm afraid you'll have to leave MN now. I'm rounding up a posse of snobs to run you off the site.

Sorry. Exclamation mark in wrong place. Grammatical faux pas.

treaclesoda foreigners have a free pass to get things wrong. Including use of knives and forks.

I was very upset that in reading out notices in an exam (redbrick university) I invigilating this morning I had to include instructions about what to do if you want to go to the toilet.

I bet at Oxford and Cambridge they say lavatory.

We Americans get laughed at on MN for the terms "bathroom" (even for a room that has no bath tub in it) and "restroom." These are words that we adhere to so that we can almost always avoid having to use the word "toilet."

This thread is exhausting.

Why am I still looking at it?

I met a man from the North once who asked to take me out for tea on Saturday, I wasn't really that interested in him but I loved the idea of being taken for afternoon tea as a date, so said yes. It was only when he started talking about meeting at 7 did I realise my mistake. Fortunately dear reader I married him.

I use

Supper or dinner or tea
Afters or dessert
Bathroom or loo or 'going for a wee'
Sorry or pardon or what or excuse me
Serviette or napkin

I'm clearly a polyglot

MrsGuy that's a fantastic story!
Unless you tell it in a shrilly in a cut glass bray, whilst he glowers at you from beneath his flat cap and you burst into tears at all you lost.

Supper.
Pudding.
Loo.
What.
Napkin.
Sofa.
Sitting room.

And I'm righter than anyone else

Jux! Snap on all of the above! Whatever class we may be, we are equals :o

Supper = milk and biscuits before bed.

Supper is a little extra 4th light meal/ snack not long before bed surely? Perhaps if you had tea at 5 you'd need supper at 9.30pm, but if you had dinner at 8 you wouldn't need supper...

Dinner or supper
Pudding or dessert if I'm in a restaurant that has "Dessert Menu"
Toilet or loo
What
Napkin
Sofa
Sitting room

...I feel like I'm doing a Tumblr tag.

Pardon definitely much ruder and common. What is correct. Always. Yabu.

FFS.

Well this has kept me entertained.

However I don't think people are being snobbish to tell the OP that she is not correct, just showing her that her's is not the one true way. I totally agree that this is an excellent opportunity to teach the kids about diplomacy and different registers.

Also, am rather shocked at the meal designations: they are most definitely English not British. I remember a couple of flatmates at uni being surprised I talked about having 'tea' at around 6.30 and they flat out asked me if my family was 'Northern' as they had assumed I had a West Country accent (I'm actually from N. Ireland) and so couldn't square my use of tea with what they had assumed my background was. Told them my parents were Scottish, and in my family tea (as in high tea) was whatever you ate in the early evening, dinner was eaten later and usually more substantial than my beans on toast, and supper was a snack before bed. Personally I find the use of supper for main evening meal to be slightly odd in any other context than theatre supper but as long as I don't have to use it, I couldn't care either way. Live and let live.

There is an argument for "what" over "pardon" beyond being class conscious, it is easier for the children to learn "what" and not having to remember in stressful situations (job interviews, being a student at Oxbridge, dinner with the boss etc) to say the unfamiliar. In an ideal world things like this would not matter, in reality lots of people do have a sensitive class radar and people falling foul of it will often be self conscious. Unjust and annoying, but avoidable. Pick your battles.

I think I'd rather be common than such a snob, tbh.

That was to mummyluce and anyone else who has said similar, not the immediately preceding posts.