Should DH 'correct' our children's accents?

[OohMavis]

Or, rather, encourage them to speak 'properly'

Because I'm not convinced he should. He obviously thinks otherwise.

DH was raised in London, me in Kent. I have a typical Kentish accent, a tiny bit on the posher side, I pronounce my Ts in most cases for example, etc. His is similar.

We live in a small town in Kent where the accent is parodied locally for being 'rough'. It's just a bit cockney really, there's nothing wrong with it imo. Since moving here though 6yo DS has started mimicking it a bit, particularly since starting school. Small things like saying 'wha'ever' instead of 'whatever'. Lots of glottal stops and elongating of words. Hard to explain without saying it out loud.

Anyway, every time he does this, DH corrects him. Not in a shouty or cross way, but he'll repeat the word back to him and DS will usually restart his sentence using 'proper' pronunciation of his own volition. He doesn't seem to mind being corrected at the moment but I can see it really annoying him before long. It would irritate me to be constantly corrected on the way I speak.

DH thinks that speaking 'properly', as he calls it, will give him an advantage when he grows up with looking for jobs, and genuinely believes that people with our accent sound more intelligent than those with a cockney one. It's strange because he's not a snob at all, he grew up poor in South London and has no idea of himself as somehow better than anyone else. His grandmother (who raised him) just made him speak properly he says, and he is glad she did.

I think it's completely natural and fine to adopt the accent of the place you live. I don't see anything wrong with DS sounding like his friends. I also think it makes DH seem like a nitpicking bore and DS will not appreciate it at all - it's not like the local accent will change, he'll have to adapt his speech all the time he spends time around his friends.

Who is BU?

I have always corrected my dc's when they drop T's and H's, I'm not posh or a snob by any means but it irritates me. I also get annoyed with my teenagers when they mumble! I do think that it's important for children to understand how to pronounce words and letters properly and how to make themselves understood. It's easy for kids to pick up bad habits when they're with their friends but as long as they know how and when to speak 'properly' it's ok. And I do think presenting yourself well, i.e. in an interview, includes speaking well too. Neither of you are BU but I would agree with your DH tbh.

Shame I can't type as well I speak!

I'm with your husband. Just because it would irritate you to be corrected all the time (and perhaps rightly so - you are not your husband's child after all!) it doesn't mean it will irritate your son.

Furthermore it's important to teach children that there's a time and a place for these things. It's fine for him to speak like that with his friends. But possibly not in a job interview. And your husband clearly doesn't accept it around him. So I think you should accept the corrections. Just because you wouldn't like to be corrected or don't think he should be corrected, it doesn't mean your husband doesn't have valid reasons for thinking he should be. There's a time and a place for everything/all types of speech and maybe he shouldn't be speaking to his parents like he's talking to his mates. You're not his mates.

I am American and my husband is Scottish living in southeast London. We both correct our children. We understand that we can't conquer all but we do not allow the dropping of Ts or the adding of Rs to words that don't have them. My son has a very mixed accent, one daughter has a southeast London accent but uses Ts and loses Rs and the 3rd...well...the battle has commenced and we shall overcome. How people speak means a lot and some people say it does not matter, but in my work I have found how you speak can open or close a door. I'd like the doors to be opened.

What you're describing I would also correct.

But I don't correct my children's accent. They are scouse and I am home counties .

My mother always corrected my pronunciation and I don't think it's a bad thing.

It is a fact of life that first impressions count, and one of them is when you open your mouth. There is nothing wrong with being able to speak properly. Certainly won't do anyone any harm in life.
And that's coming from a girl who's grown up with always being "the posh one". Even though it lead to some reading through school, I'm now grateful my mother was such a stickler.

My mother always corrected our regional accents so I grew up without one, and speak 'Queen's English'. I think it can be an advantage for interviews and certain social situations.

However I am a natural mimic (what Jeremy Hardy calls 'Sympathetic Accent Syndrome') and when I am chatting with friends from Yorkshire I know I use the shorter 'a'. And when I visit family in the South West I use the longer 'aaaa'. I really can't help it! I suspect it probably drives people nuts. I know I get more of a lilt in my voice with Welsh family too.

"we do not allow the dropping of Ts or the adding of Rs to words that don't have them"

I'm interested- to which words do your DC add superfluous Rs?

I'm in Suffolk and I'm forever correcting pronunciation with dropped H's and T's!

I'm a corrector. I have no issue with accents (I'm Welsh for goodness sake!) but I can't bare 'wa'er' etc.

My biggest bugbear is missing prepositions I.e 'I'm going Bluewater' or 'Jack went tuck shop' I can't stand it. It's just lazy.

Just reading back and didn't realise 'Going bluewater' is a thing. I had a colleague who used to say it and it drove me up wall

I correct her on grammatical errors like saying, "Stacey and I" instead of "Stacey and me". Worse still, my husband who will say, "Me and Stacey". No no, not in our house.

Aah, but are you correcting her correctly?

In some sentences "Stacey and me" is correct.

Huge thread, so sorry if this has been said, but there's also the issue that knowing how to pronounce words in queens English, and correct grammar, helps with writing. English is hard to spell anyway, and if u always say "we weren't doin' nuffin'", you just won't know that u have to write "we weren't doing anything", when ur at school.
So I don't think there's anything wrong with an accent (especially a nice Scottish one, with a lovely deep voice ;-) ), but we do need to know about correct grammar to be successful at school.

What a dick

I grew up in the Medway Towns and my mum was forever correcting me. It was a pain then but I'm very glad she did. Being understood in the US is hard enough at times, I couldn't imagine what it would be like if she hadn't corrected me.

I grew up in the Medway Towns and my mum was forever correcting me. It was a pain then but I'm very glad she did. Being understood in the US is hard enough at times, I couldn't imagine what it would be like if she hadn't corrected me.

Ooo! I've not heard of "sympathetic accent syndrome" before, but I do that too! Always have. Drove my SE England mum nuts when I went up to visit Dad's Yorkshire family and ended up speaking with, in her words, "a silly pseudo-yorkshire accent".

I also got into trouble with my British friends when we did a school exchange to Germany, and I ended up speaking English with a slight German accent! It wasn't deliberate, but it helped with the general understanding. I have a good ear for understanding accents, and fall into this "sympathetic" accent very easily, but am absolutely rubbish at mimicking an accent unless it's going on around me.

flowery - I'm not the person you asked, but it seems that as she's American and her DH is Scottish, and both of those accents are "rhotic", where any r in the word is usually pronounced, she might be talking about words like "path", where the London pronunciation is "parth", not "path" (short a). But I could be wrong! DS1 developed a bit of a rhotic accent from watching too many American kids' films - but he would add an extra r in where none was needed, e.g. the bear's pawr. Now he can read, he doesn't do it any more of course!

Regional accents are a beautiful thing, I think (NE & SW are my favourite) and they're sadly slowly fading. There's nothing at all wrong with embracing your regional accent, but it's entirely possible to speak correctly within that. Dropping letters (T, H) or adding them (K, ff) is incorrect and certainly people will judge them for that.

It sounds really wanky but listen to the local newsreaders for an example of what I'm trying to say - regional accent + correctly spoken English. Win win.

Your DH isn't being that U. We're a Yorkshire family but my mum would always correct me. I'd roll my eyes when younger but it's come in handy now. Poor pronunciation can make someone sound uneducated and unacceptable for a job. I can now speak in slang to my DSis and other family but switch to a posher voice for professional needs. My DH laughs at me for having a phone voice but at least people on the other end understand me more than him .

In all honesty though, it's not bad to remind them how to speak properly.

Oh and this doesn't mean lose the accent. I still have an accent (although now mixed with a lot of others due to a lot of moving) but just encourage to stop being lazy with pronunciation really.

"I'm interested- to which words do your DC add superfluous Rs?"
I'm not the OP, but... people with non-rhotic English accents (SE/RP/'proper'/whatever) tend to add Rs to words that don't have them - the word "drawering" for "drawing" was mentioned earlier in the thread. My mum had an American friend (we live in the US) years ago who used to Joke that Mum called her "Linder" instead of Linda.

"It's not the accent that's the problem it's the use of improper grammar and local dialect."
I think the gradual loss of dialect is even more tragic than the loss of regional accents, the language is poorer for it.

Accents are great, mispronouncing words (e.g dropping ts) is not good. They are not the same thing. As parents we all try to ensure the best for our children. Personally I think the ability to communicate in clear precise English is one of the most important things. I do the same as your husband and will continue to do so.

This is all fascinating (as I'm Canadian and lived in the West Country for years). My mum corrected my pronunciation (she was Canadian w English parents), she liked T's articulated etc. As a result my formal speech (how I speak @ work etc) is occasionally misconstrued by people who've never travelled as sounding English (as in RP). And before anyone finds that too amusing, when I lived in the UK, my typically Canadian accent was heard as anyone from Texas to Ireland to Germany (!) to Australian. Baffling.

I've got sympathetic accent-itis as well. Had a nanny from Ulster so do that really easily (to an embarrassing extent), had Norf London cousins & auntie, so ease into that every time I hear Amy W, and lived in the West Country so go all Worzle ;) at the slightest provocation.

I've also taught EFL's, and on that basis say, as long as I can understand you I'm good to go. But I appreciate that in the UK there's a whole class layer that's over my head.

Im in France and here a really strong local accent would be very limiting work wise. We still have accents that are really local and really strong.

I correct my kids English accent and it certainly does them no harm to sound (posh) English when they talk English. Outside (ans inside) of the U.K. sounding posh works works in their favour.

Kids can have a home accent and a school accent. I think you're over thinking it possibly. It's important to know how to talk in a situationally appropriate way.