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

DragonMamma Same here I'm Welsh and DH Cockney. It's been ahem interesting since we moved to Wales. Mostly DH trying to pronounce the Welsh town names

THE funniest one was when DH said he'd seen a nice 'ahse' for sale. When I asked which estate agents it was with he said "it's that massive company, A.R. Werth..." I've dined out on that one a fair few times!

The only thing he pronounces that makes my teeth itch is the word "height". To DH it's pronounced "eighfff"

I agree that it's rare to hear a cockney accent in many professional jobs (which is a shame).. Doctor barrister etc, and you just don't hear cockney newsreaders, whereas you hear other regional accents frequently on the news now. I remember listening to a great visiting lecturer at uni who had a strong cockney accent, and noticing how rare that was.
I'm not cockney but from London and say fing for thing and free for three etc, and going shop. My DS corrects my grammar cuz he's like that. I've noticed that some of my friends do correct their kids.

The documentary by Louis Theroux about alcoholism that came out in the last couple of months had a young female emergency room doctor who had a strong London accent. When you heard her you realised how rare that is, at least on TV.

Hi again OP. You didn't answer my questions about what your DH thinks about the children speaking like him, and whether he writes correct English and is willing to explain to the DC why that is important?

derx what's a glottal stop?

" They are East London by definition! "

no they are not, my children are officially cockneys and they were born in Lambeth.

OP yes you are being unreasonable, it is a dialect and you knew how he spoke before you had kids with him

I'd have tried to mention the poor grammar before kids and come up with a resolution, but that's because it's something I'm aware of.

I'm an expat of one English speaking country living in another English speaking country. Occasionally use words that are not the same words that would be used here (car park/parking lot, sidewalk/footpath, windshield/windscreen etc etc) and I'm fully aware that once we have a kid they will need to be told that "mummy talks differently sometimes". I'm worried about them being told they're "wrong" for using a word from my home country, as opposed to being told that's the "other language". I am not wrong, I just sometimes speak in my home country language/dialect and the kid/s will probably pick up on that.

I agree, correct as necessary. Nothing wrong with having an accent but saying things like 'was you?' 'we was going on the bus' 'I fink so' 'can I have free tickets please?' and 'I'm going college' , is just really annoying.

My children have both been saying 'free' instead of 'three' for a while now. I have never said it so they are picking it up at school. It sounds so lazy and I just cant take it seriously when people speak like that.

I think it is amazing that people who would not dream of 'correcting' eg a Scottish or Irish speaker would see the London dialect as fair game.

My dh is as cockney as they come. Sometimes it annoys me.
I have a Welsh accent. However, both dc can speak standard English very well, despite them, and dh being very dyslexic.I spoke with them more than he did, and they picked up more at school and with their friends than they did from him. DD has a Bristol accent and some dialect, DS has a weird conglomeration of Gloucestershire now overlaid with Yorkshire. There is talk of him moving to Newcastle. I fear I will never understand him again! (only joking)
To agree with the others - correct DC sometimes, but not DH, however tempting it is!

My fella picks me up on what I say every bloody day of the week. I'm from.N.I. and we have our own wee words and sayings etc that are unique to us and I'm nearly 40 and I am hardly going to just stop saying what I have said all my life. It pisses me off no end because he's a Yorkshireman and he's just as bad as I am, he will use the words and phrases that he grew up with, things like Now't and he adds r's on the end of words that end in a vowel, to name but a few.

People who pick other people up on their use of the English language usually don't speak proper English themselves in their own everyday conversations.

to be honest anyone who 'corrects' other people mid conversation is a bit of an arse.

Brother and i are driving along.
Me: Could you stop at the garridge so I can get some fags?
Him : Garridge? GARRIDGE? it is a ~Garaaaarj i will have you know.
Me: oh look we passed it, never mind, there is another one off of this road further on.
Him : Of off?OFF of?

Me: yes i really need the toilet as well
Him : toilet? TOILET?

and so on, repeat til fade. No i do not see him any more.

If it's good enough for Chas and Dave, it's good enough for me.

I would correct DP if he said that in front of the children. But I'm not in the UK so anyone who speaks like that around here is being lazy, or mangling the English language intentionally, and does not have the excuse of it being a local dialect to fall back on.

Of course we do have many local (national) colloquialisms, but they are more particular words and phrases as opposed to ignoring grammar rules.

Hi Jessie, sorry I missed your questions previously. I can't really answer them properly yet. He immediately becomes defensive when I've tried to bring it up before although this is admittedly when I have helpfully corrected him first So probably not the best way to approach it! His main response is that they could be picking it up from anywhere, not just him. I don't buy that though.
I've got no idea if he would write in the same way as he speaks as there is never really a reason for him to write down this type of thing. I suspect he would though.
One thing I do know is that he would definitely want the children to do things 'correctly'. So we are on the same page in that way.
I think we need to discuss it properly and without me having corrected him first so that we both aren't full of rage from the start!

Bi-lingual - cockney dialect from him and standard English from you, OP. It is important that children learn standard English at home as it helps them cope in school.

Maria re correcting Scottish speakers- I agree that the use of dialect vocabulary by a Scot would not be corrected often and would probably be thought of as charming, but OP is talking about grammar. Scots also tend to say "I seen the dog" and "I done the shopping" etc and I bet you if OP's husband was Scottish she'd be correcting that too. It was certainly corrected when I was a child in Scotland.

Thanks for answering the questions OP!

I would not have married someone with that accent and way of speaking actually as it would be a turn off to me.
If I had then I hope I'd have been kind and kept my thoughts to myself.
I remember our children's nanny said - you was (and I would never dream of correcting her) and my second child picked that up but then went to rather a posh private primary school and began speaking like that so it does change over time depending on the influences on the children.

My boys had a debate last year with gboys in their class who could not believe that people say aitch without the h. We don't say haitch at home but the boys had to get out their phones to prove to other boys in the class that people do say aitch. Those other boys in the class had never heard anyone say aitch without the h, apparently.

And yes in some jobs it does help to speak in a particular way. My daughters are London lawyers. I don't think they are hampered because they speak "well". However I have worked with lawyers all over London with all kinds of accents and if you're very good at your job in all fields across the City of London it is not a massive deal how you speak particularly as a lot of work is done by email these days anyway. Some employers now though do a telephone interview first which might be a secret "posh test" or require a video recording with you on it to be submitted. One lady lawyer spent ages it was reported last week preparing one of these videos I think for a Government legal job, uploaded it and then there was a technical hitch and it was lost, poor her. That illustrates my point that employers often want to hear how you sound before they bother to interview you. Sending in your CV with a covering letter was a lot easier. Although you can usualyl work out how someone will sound by looking at what school and university they went to on their Linkedin profile.

A glottal stop is the sound made when you don't pronounce T in words e.g. Bu'er instead of butter, wa'er instead of water, and Eigh' instead of eight.
I learnt that on mumsnet. hope I got it right

ok twice on this thread 'getting it wrong' has been described as 'dialect'. That it entirely not what dialect means, and neither of the instances on this thread are examples of dialect.

Dropping the last letter of her words, speaking in a very strong Scottish voice and dropping out of school at 15 doesn't seem to have held Baroness Michelle Mone back though?

According to this cockney is now being lost

www.theweek.co.uk/politics/13533/london%E2%80%99s-cockney-accent-will-be-gone-30-years

Exceptions like Michael Mone and Lord Sugar don't really help though because there will always be people who battle through disadvantage and do fine whereas if you speak a bit "better" and have good exam results etc then the percentage chance you will do better in life is improved so why not improve chances for a child? My mother taught classes of 40+ after WII without a teachintg assistance and those primary age children were taught (by her in a rough part of the NE) correct English, grammar, spelling and it did them no harm. I am not saying she changed how they all spoke to very posh but she certainly made sure they realised what was regarded as better English by most potential employers.

Yes, the glottal stop is dropping the 't', but putting a kind if 'ugh' sound in its place, without using the tongue to form the 't' sound....... It's hard to describe!

I like cockney, yabu.