Colleague's speech patterns annoying me

[cardboardPeony]

I think I probably ABU but I have a colleague who uses phrases like "X is going toilet". This really grates on me but I don't know how to say that it does or if I'm just being unreasonable and it's a regional thing.

Also we work with children and therefore should be using the language we want them to use, especially as lots of them are just learning English, but I think I am going to sound like a major pedant bringing it up.

.

Between now and infinity

I have always needed a word to describe that time interval.

Added to my ideolect.

I don't care if it sounds stupid in an Irish accent.

DoinIt You have to be really quite thick to imagine that you can tell how clever someone is based on whether and how they use definite articles.

You can tell how rich their parents were.

For some people that's what really matters.

Wealth and speech patterns do not correlate that precisely. I know many people who speak "standard" English (albeit with a variety of accents) yet are not from well-off families. The only person I know who would say "going to toilet" (or "going t' toilet) is from Yorkshire, where "to the" becomes "t" and "the" is often omitted entirely. Im amazed to hear it's supposed to be a London thing as I'm from London and consider it "incorrect" speech. I wouldn't pull someone up on it, but it does make me wince internally, and distracts from what they are saying. It has the same effect on me as a loud alarm going off in the background - slightly painful, and distracting. I'm probably BU about that, but I'm not turning my nose up at anyone, it's more like a QI-style klaxon goes off in my head completely unintentionally.

I do think a certain type of English should be spoken in educational establishments. How else will some children get enough exposure to what is considered appropriate English for academic work?

Also, the idea that it's "regional" doesn't make sense, if people who have grown up in the same area can have such different speech patterns. I accept "going t' toilet" in a Yorkshire accent, because that geuinely does seem regional. Someone with my accent who said "going to toilet" would get a klaxon though...

doin

My family is Irish! My grandad is incredibly Irish and he uses dreckly so it's all good.

Ah but Poldark is Irish so you have the word and I'll take him

I've heard it a lot with under 25s in Bromley/Bexley area too.

I went Bromlaaaaaay
You gairn Blooowa'er?
He went toilerrr'
She's gairn doctors
You bin shops?

mamushka not sure why you think that. Many posters in the south east have said they hear it in their area.

As have many Londoners.

But we're used to taking responsibility for the ills of the uk in London and the south east so if you have interpreted this thread as 'us' thinking 'you' are lazy and uneducated then I guess we'll have to take that on the chin too. Even if it's not actually been said or implied.

To give it a bit more context we grew up about 20 minutes away from each other and have the same accents but I'm guessing we have different dialects?

doinitfine I have a massive girly pash for you! Yes oh yes to everything you've said!

And if I ever hear anyone banging on about correct speech, and running down regional accent and dialect, I immediately write them off as being extremely poorly educated.

Trudgill. Crystal. Chomsky. I love love love you.

Ok not so much Chomsky.

I'm always intrigued on these threads as to how far away from 'the south east' and it's 'proper' language you have to be for it to be ok to speak in your own regional dialect or speech patterns, according to the 'it makes you sound thick' people.

Is it ok to have a Scottish accent and associated speech pattern, or does that make you sound thick too? Or is anywhere within the UK expected to conform. I know I've been told before (although not on this particular thread) that my difficulty in prounouncing the 'T' sound is just laziness, and my inability to rhyme some words with others (scarf and giraffe for example, to use one that is probably well known to anyone with young children who love Julia Donaldson) is just weird, when actually it is my accent. I'm from N Ireland, should I be conforming? But then what about someone from Ireland? Surely they shouldn't be expected to conform to the speech patterns of a country which they are not part of. But if they don't conform, why should people from N Ireland, when we only live a few miles up the road? I just don't see how you can ever equate speech patterns with 'sounding thick and/or uneducated'.

OP, you can have different accents in the same town. My fucking excellent dissertation included a study of a town with a notable isoglos running through the middle. One side was solidly Liverpool based, and the other was absolutely Lancashire. Tiny town, no class divide, almost all Catholic, half Woolie, half Scouse.

Does it really matter? I'll never get rid of my accent even if I tried but it has never held me back. My dd also has a Cornish accent and she has teachers from all over the world. Her Spanish teacher is actually from India but he speaks Spanish fluently and is very competent

Can you imagine working with surgeons that say "I'm going theatre"

I can assure you that there are plenty of surgeons who speak with regional accents. As if all surgeons have to come from Southeast England...

I've been known to say "I'm going Tesco", "goin bed" etc and I'm from south bucks. I picked it up when I lived in SE London.

it's a regional dialect FROM the south east it seems sugarlightly....:)

Kitten did they sound the same for some sentences? For example if we were both to say I ate chicken last night we'd sound the same but obviously they'd say I'm going toilet whereas I'd say I'm going to the toilet. Our pronunciation of I'm going and toilet are the same.

In my part of Bristle it would be "Go a toilet" "Go a Asdals". In school though the children just say, however we model it "I need a wee" whilst doing the dance.

East Midlands this is a common phrase too!

It's certainly prevalent in the midlands, and totally unacceptable by nursery or school staff. For children to understand grammar they need to hear the language correctly.

I'm from central London and I fucking hate this; and am forever correcting my dc when they say it. I don't see it as a regional thing though, but I am hearing it more often. I think it's more of a youth thing if anything.

I would say that YANBU as even if it is a regional thing, it is ignorant to not realise that it is technicallly wrong and if this person works with children they should be modelling correct speech. I would have been very unimpressed if my children had returned from nursery or schools saying that kind of thing. You can't say much really I suppose but can maybe make a point just be saying such phrases properly in front of any children.

Nurseries surely have a lot of children still in nappies

petitpois you do realise that wales is a fairly large place with as much variation between dialects as anywhere else and so what might be routine in one area of wales is not I've else??
Also I've never heard anyone over the age of 5 say pompadoms.

We all need one of these