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?

she was great! I don't know what the context was here but I agree. she wrote some crakcing novels in her day. put that 50 shades woman to shame they would.

That's hilarious, what would the queen expect a servant to say to her if the servant hadn't heard her!

Many people including teachers will think 'what' is rude because it doesn't convey effort on the part of the listener to listen.

In order to use 'what' politely you have to be sure that the speaker is aware that for some reason some people think it is polite to say 'what'.

You also have to be sure that you are in the group of people entitled to say 'what?' when you say it. I don't think waiters, shop assistants, flight attendants etc. are generally well received when they respond to requests with 'what'.

well, I'd have lazily and instinctively said what to my mother but I wouldn't have said what to a teacher, I'd have said "sorry sir?" but I went to school a million years ago.
I grew up in a semi detached house! I didnt realise that this meant you couldn't be middle class!

Wow, what a response!

For anyone interested in an update, after speaking to DH I decided to take the moral high ground and say nothing. I agree with many on this thread that it would be better manners for me to ignore her poor manners, iyswim.

Thank you for the replies, it's been illuminating to see how many others have been brought up to speak incorrectly!

"been brought up to speak incorrectly"
Ha!
Differently to you then,?

If you are on this thread and you are in the "what" camp, how do you feel about "sorry?" (with an upward lilt, obvs )?

Thinking that if "pardon" people think "what" is rude and "what" people think "pardon" is infra dig then "sorry" could be the get out of jail free without pissing off anyone card?!

Your last message has to be a wind up, OP Even if you've been brought up with the lower m-cm-c usage of "Pardon" anyone with a functioning brain cell having read thus thread would realise that either usage can be correct.

It's about usage and class. Very few uses of languagelanguage are "correct" or "incorrect" in the way you are doggedly maintaining. You are still VV unreasonableunreasonable.

And actually, I was always taught that it's bad manners and more importantly, unkind, to pint out peoples errors of speech to them. Words like "toilet" lounge, serviette, and Ta, make my teeth itch, but really , in the course of human interaction, my feelings about other people's language use are completely irrelevant. And unkind.

I hope you learn something from this, OP but from the tone of your most recent post, I doubt it

Merrymouse.

Every single one of my children would say "what sir" and nine of them would be corrected

OP, if you believe that people who speak using perfectly correct and acceptable language have been brought up incorrectly and are exhibiting poor manners then, I'm afraid, it is your upbringing which has been incorrect. I feel sorry for your children.

Goodness me, OP, how were you dragged up?

Not in your choice of language, btw, but in your blinkered insularity. What a disservice your parents did you.

What a knobhead.

OP- You sound as though you're the kind of person who'd also say 'Mrs Jones and I' when it should be 'Mrs Jones and me'. You are mistaking a fake veneer of 'poshness' with correctness.

This thread makes me so glad not to be English. Class obsession is archaic, limiting and thoroughly depressing.

that update is a wind up!

Hahaha good one OP. You managed to create a 466 post thread with a complete wind up. Well done ??

Same here agent cooper. These issues exist in my country but they're not chiselled in to granite. They're just jotted on paper with a pencil.

Sommeren (re. What the queen would expect a servant to say if s/he hadn't heard her), the problem of how to educate your aristocratic/gentry children away from the Non-U manners of governesses and upper servants who largely brought them up comes up quite often in period novels. There is one Molly Keane novel from the 20s that I can think of where the six year son of an Irish big house horrifies his lower-middle-class governess when he copies his parents' U table manners as soon as he's old enough to eat lunch downstairs with them, rather than the non-U 'pardon-small-portions-and-always-leave-a-bit-for-manners' way she's taught him from her own upbringing.

Presumably some children naturally 'code switched' between servants' manners and 'family manners', before being sent away to school to root out any lingering 'problems'.

You sound as though you're the kind of person who'd also say 'Mrs Jones and I' when it should be 'Mrs Jones and me'.

Lol.

The former is always correct.
The later is never correct.

Hth

OK, so it is a wind up. No-one is stupid enough to come out with that last post.

What l'm wondering, is how bored does one have to be, to start a thread like this?
I don't think it is very kind actually.
The feeling is of mokery.

Very, very bored Feminine. Also, very very boring.

OP to her DH: "I really must confront your mother now. She has taught the children to say "what?" instead of "pardon". I'm horrified."

DH: "What?"

WoeIsMee, you shock me. Surely you can see that your username should be WoeIsI or possibly WoeIsMyself?

Will nobody think of the children?