AIBU to correct my cockney husband?!

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My husband is probably what you would describe as an 'East London cockney!' We have two young children. He will often say 'done' instead of 'did'. For example, 'I done the washing yesterday'. Kids have started to repeat this now. Whenever he says it now I am correcting him, no big deal, just saying 'did' when he says done. He is not taking it well and is getting really cross with me. Equally I am getting really cross with him when he says it as I now don't feel like I can say anything to him about it without having my head bitten off. I do appreciate that I am probably totally annoying him but I don't think it is fair on the children that they are getting confused over the English language because of him. So, AIBU? Maybe I should forget about correcting him and just focus on correcting the kids when they get it wrong? When I've read up on this though the advice seems to be that we should model the correct use of language to our kids rather than 'correcting' them. Any helpful advice would be appreciated! Thank you

I think the interesting thing about that kind of dialect is that presumably your husband doesn't write in that way?

I can't speak for the OP's husband, but the TA who used to complete DS1's home-school communication book in reception would regularly write "X done lovely writing today" "X read beautiful today." She had a great rapport with him so I didn't raise it. (He has ASD so the support was more to help him interact etc)

Should have punched her.

(I'm going to punch autocorrect )

Your dh is wrong but I agree that it's probably better just to correct the kids. I have this too with my dh using "bring" and "take" in reverse, which is an Irish thing.

DH and I live in Bristol but aren't from here. I expect a lot of correcting DD's grammar once she's started school

Kids pick up very easily that different people speak in different ways -In some families each parent will use a different language with the children and the kids don't get them mixed up . Correct the kids -not the husband. Unless you actually want the fallout when the children copy you and correct their Dad too either at home or in public !!

For those saying all cockneys are from East London, that is not the case. St Mary-le-Bow church is in the City of London, and historically the bells could be heard for miles in all direction.

I have seen that a lot of people think the Bow Bells were actually located in Bow (which is in East London); perhaps this causes part of the view that all cockneys are from the east, although I suspect it has more to do with East London having more working class areas in proximity to the City than other directions.

Like 'twenny ayyy' with just a ghost of a t in there? You would have punched her anyway

Yeah that's it.. Can't punch her, she have reason to believe me a real right chav then

I'm a Londoner and unlike the rest of my family, do have an accent and speak in dialect. My written grammar is fine, and I'm able to 'speak properly' when necessary eg job interviews. It used to drive my Mum insane and she was forever correcting me. The more she did it, the broader London I spoke. She even sent me to elocution lessons....she may as well have flushed the money down the loo.

It's not done me any harm. I'm a qualified psychiatric nurse and doing fine in my profession. As long as your kids know how to speak properly for occasions when it's needed, I'm sure they'll be OK. Innit.

But why can't children learn both? Where does this idea come from that being exposed to extra information confuses you? As long as it is explained to you, clearly and unemotionally, how the system works.

Besides, it seems pretty obvious to me that we all juggle with a certain amount of diglossia anyway: nobody (at least nobody NT) speaks in exactly the same way as they write. To do so would mark you out as very odd. Text speak adds a third layer; and again, there is no evidence that people who need to keep spoken English/formally written English/txtspk apart are not able to learn to do so.

I am anxious for my children's education too. But to me that has always seemed to be about giving them as much information as possible, not anxiously keeping them away from anything that might contaminate the approved knowledge.

ipso, 'bring' and 'take' are not used in reverse in Hiberno-English, the concepts of bringing and taking are actually different (basically translated from Gaelic). You only take something from someone (or somewhere), and the rest of the time you bring things. So you bring your umbrella when you go out, but you also bring a souvenir back from holiday.

My db like myself grew up in a very highbrow family with not a trace of local accent. His present job means he gets along much better if he speaks the local accent at work. As far as I can make out he switches between them as effortlessly as I do between English and my first language. He hasn't been contaminated or dragged down in any way: just added another skill to his skills set.

I would only correct him of he said 'ow-rite treeh-kle' because that sounds creepy.

I have to grit my teeth every time DP says "them" instead of "those" - as in "them flowers". Gah. It's pretty much universal where he's from though so technically dialect I guess, and it doesn't seem to be holding him back career-wise or in life so I'm prepared to accept I may be the only person who notices or cares about his imperfect grasp of grammar. I agree strongly with what's been said here about it being really problematic for the relationship to be correcting your partner about such things. I'm Scottish and if he tried "correcting" me on something I said (eg "It's not 'a skelf', it's a splinter.....") I'd not be impressed. So I'll stick to correcting the kids if required - but they haven't yet decided to use any of my strange Scottish phrases, nor have they picked up his "them" so I'm guessing they can manage to filter out their parents' idiosyncrasies.

My husband is probably what you would describe as an 'East London cockney!'

Is there any other kind?

Of course! Glasgow cockney, west coast of ireland cockney, dutch cockney

My children have picked up 'tuth' instead of tooth from my inlaws. I correct the children but would never correct the inlaws, that's just how they speak.
My DH doesn't have much of an accent (West Country) but there are a couple of words/sounds he pronounces the same and I can't distinguish between them. He gets really arsey with me if I ask him which one he meant because he thinks I'm taking the piss, but I genuinely can't hear any difference!

Least he did the washing

Oh dear. I've taught DS some priceless Glaswegian expressions and words. His current favourite is 'keech' - also (had her) wheesht, blether and ach-away.

Thank god, I write copy for a living... I can do a good impression of the queen when I need to, also ran c nesbit when occasion calls.

My DH is cockney and I'm Welsh. We live in Wales. The DC know daddy can't say three (free) properly and other foibles and what the correct pronunciation is. He also says done and did incorrectly.

They have started saying war-ta for water though and I do pick them up on it because it's dreadful.

For a Welsh person, I speak more correctly than my English dh and the only word I know I say incorrectly is tuth instead of tooth.

I would agree with correcting the children but not OH. We are cockneys, my 3 children all married well spoken people.

My grandchildren are well spoken, and my 3 speak very differently from when they lived with us. I expect Your OH will also gradually absorb your way of speaking once the children do.

I am lucky that my DiLs and my SiLs don't judge us for the way we speak,

You can have an accent and still speak grammatically correctly. I don't buy into this saying "Was you ill?" or "Have I went mad?" being dialect - it's not. Dialect is different words and phrasings used around the country. We have LOTS in Scotland, hubby who is from Merseyside says something old fashioned is "ant-wacky" which is a Liverpool dialect word.

It's not snobbish to want your children to grow up speaking correctly and "standard" English. I will correct husband when says "Who did you get that present off?" and hate the fact that the Scottish government is trying to push Scots dialect which in many cases isn't dialect at all, it's just slovenly speak. Saying "hoose" instead of "house" or "dinnae" instead of "don't" isn't dialect.

Blether is a great word Mavis

i'm a third generation Cockerney but i'm posh. i live in Suffolk and my OH has a broad accent. i think he sounds lovely. i wouldn't dream of correcting his speech. why infantilise someone?