Correcting Dh’s grammar in front of dd because she’s starting to pick up his way of speaking.

[CocoDeMoll]

I’m not a snob in any way, seriously!!

My dd is 5 and she now attends a little local primary where there are lots of kids from v MC backgrounds and I don’t want her being picked on in the future because she says things wrong. And for the record my own spelling and grammar is shit so I’m not judging.

She’s says ‘them’ instead of ‘those’ as in ‘can I have some of them tomatoes’ and other stuff like that because dh does. Dh doesn’t realise this isn’t correct but doesn’t jump down my throat if I say it isn’t so he’s pretty decent about it. I have no issues with accents or dialects but I feel like down the line she might get further ahead if I correct her from saying stuff like ‘so I tells him’ to ‘so I told him’. AIBU?

[sockunicorn]

@itsnotmesothere

If that is so dreadfully important, why did you marry him?

because i love him. DESPITE his shit accent :). I also hated the majority of his shoes and ive managed to replace them over the years ;). accents proving a bit tricker to get rid of.

Theres loads of things about him I wouldnt want DC to pick up (and Im sure loads about me). But theres even more about him i WOULD want them to pick up, thats why I married him.

[CommanderDaisy]

Keep on correcting your daughter.
Grammar is important, and speaking correctly ( accents aside) is as well.
I live in Australia, and some of the phrases!
“ youse all”
“ He come round”
“ I brought a ..from the shop”
“ I brung it from home”

My kids spent their early years constantly being corrected by me, and I still do it now they are in their teens. I make them repeat the correct phrasing several times. Now, they use the wrong words to tease me.

The Australian accent can also get very nasal in the way words are spoken, I correct that as well.
They appreciate it now, or at least the older one does. He enjoys the comments he gets for being so well-spoken.

[Loonoon]

I had the opposite issue growing up. My family were RP and I went to an inner London school where my accent was very out of place. I quickly developed a home accent and a playground accent as I am sure many others do. My current accent is probably midway between the two.

Let it lie OP. She’ll work it out for herself.

[ThistleAmore]

As a professional commercial writer, editor and proofreader - yes, do.

Language is important: it's how we communicate meaning. I work with people from a variety of backgrounds, upbringings, classes etc, but in my experience, those who are most successful are those who can communicate clearly and succinctly, without having to explain themselves.

There's nothing wrong with having an accent or using dialect words or whatever in everyday speech (I'm Scottish, and I defend both my accent and my knowledge of 40 different words for rain fiercely), but a good grasp of correct grammar is incredibly important.

[KitchenDancefloor]

My MIL has a south London accent (but poshed up) and speech patterns. She corrects my DCs accents whilst using incorrect grammar, eg

DC1: We were going to the fee-et-er
MIL: no, it's 'we was going to that THeatre'

So frustrating!^^ I don't say anything to her but I would if my DH did it.

I would far rather my DC had a broad estuary accent and good spoken and written grammar than a put on RP accent with dodgy grammar. It's all a bit Eliza Doolittle.

[ThistleAmore]

@sockunicorn

I also hated the majority of his shoes and I've managed to replace them over the years

You and me both. It took me the better part of 15 years to get him to part with the hideous moth-eaten moccasins, I reckon it'll take another 15 to iron out the random conjunctions...

[KitchenDancefloor]

The bold in the previous post went squiffy and really didn't help clarify what I was trying to get across which is grammar trumps accent every time.

[CocoDeMoll]

The only reasons i correct him are that dd will learn off him, he genuinely doesn’t know what’s the correct term and also that he works in an industry run and frequented by very posh people.

I don’t want dd to suffer because I’ve put her daddy’s potential hurt feels above her right to learn correct grammar.

[Aintnothingbutaheartache]

Stick with it coco
You are doing right by dd

[puppymouse]

We correct DD when she does similar. Have a close family member who often uses words or grammar incorrectly and she does sometimes copy. I'm pretty sure her school will iron it out come September.

The only thing I do try to ban and I know I'll probably get flamed for this is "taaa" instead of please or thank you. I absolutely refused to say it when she first learned to speak, despite so many of her peers using it but I just loathe it. One of her friend's mum (who's lovely) uses it and she's started copying so I've had to ask her not to say it but then explain people sometimes just use words differently. I feel bad but I can't stand it. She can bloody say please and thank you.

[Aintnothingbutaheartache]

Why do so many parents teach babies to say ‘taaa’?

[DotForShort]

Explicit error correction is often ineffective, but modeling standard grammar can work well. I would just rephrase your DD’s words, e.g., “Oh, you’d like those tomatoes?”

I’m not a strict prescriptivist when it comes to grammar, but I wouldn’t say one needs to be in order to object to saying “them” rather than “those.”

Dialect and accent are something else entirely. I have an American accent, and I can’t stand it when someone in the UK claims that I am pronouncing a word incorrectly. Well, no, my pronunciation is perfectly correct.

[OwlBeThere]

I'm a S&L therapist and I can tell you resolutely correction doesn't work, modelling correct speech is far more successful. If DH says 'oh them tomatos look nice' you would model back 'what do you think DD, do those tomatos look nice?' and she will pick it up.

[KitchenDancefloor]

Another one here who didn't teach her DC to say taaaaa. I can't stand it.

Or love, in place of hug/kiss as in, 'come here and give me a love'. No. No. No.

[ADishBestEatenCold]

Difficult. A bit of a conundrum indeed, because ... while you are doing this "Correcting Dh’s grammar in front of dd because she’s starting to pick up his way of speaking" ... who will be teaching her about bad manners?

p.s. "The only reasons i correct him are that dd will learn off him" don't you mean 'dd will learn from him'

[MrsSteptoe]

Correct her, definitely. If you don't, she'll replicate grammar errors in writing. It took a long time for DS to learn not to write could of, should of, rather than could have, should have - simply because I never really took the trouble to correct his diction when he was speaking, but not writing (they did very little writing at his primary school till the latter years) and consequently the wrong formulation was completely embedded in his brain.

[egdehsdrawkcab]

Gaaaaah my DS picks up an awful lot from DH's east end side of the family. Eg, 'I don't want no more/nothing', them apples', 'what I done' etc etc

It's driving me mad! Correct correct correct!

[CommanderDaisy]

OwlBeThere I have found correction absolutely works if you are consistent and pick the child up on it every time.
It has worked in my family very successfully, and this even in a very rural Australian community where language is appalling butchered.
My husband and I are well-spoken but have never used the approach you suggest. Even with good examples at home, the school yard and general community took precedence in my children’s speaking patterns, and repeated correction was required.

[Mousefunky]

I correct mine when they drop letters in the middle of words. It’s rife in the Yorkshire dialect and I spent a long time weeding it out of my own accent so don’t want them picking it up. Major difference between having an accent and using incorrect grammar, YANBU.

[Monty27]

OP there's nothing wrong with teaching a child how to string a sentence properly. No matter what accent.
I did it in sarf London

[OwlBeThere]

commanderdaisy well yes, I think when I say ‘never works’im thinking of a clinical setting wheee there is often shame and frustration tied up in a persons speech/language issue and correcting someone who is already struggling can be damaging to self-esteem. So I suppose in a person who doesn’t have those hang ups to begin with it may work ok and hopefully not cause issues. I wouldn’t risk it though as Either way, the modelling technique is strongly superior in producing results. You can’t say correction was required when by your own admission you never practised regular, consistent modelling.

[Ozgirl75]

My husband and I are both British but live in Australia and now have two children. I don’t care if it’s snobby, I always correct them when they replace the t in words with a d (“warder boddle for water bottle and “pardy for party”). They do get the occasional mild ribbing (funnily enough from the teachers, not the other children) about their “posh” accent (it isn’t, it’s just a normal southern English accent) but I don’t care, I think it sounds much better to pronounce words properly.

I don’t correct their Australian words for things (lolly for every sweet, swimmers, gumboots etc) and I don’t even mind the soft accent they’ve picked up, but I do insist on “t” where a “t” should be

[DVader]

I'm a little surprised there isn't a greater awareness of sociolinguistic accommodation i.e that individuals tune their accents and vocabulary into different social and geographical contexts as required.

As someone who grew up surrounded by Scots speakers who wouldn't allow me to actually speak the language, I have to say how irritating, patronising and pointless I found that as a child (and not to mention sad to look back and realise how much people didn't value their own mother tongue) From an early age I was more than aware when it was appropriate to speak and write in English and when it was appropriate to speak in Scots (people didn't even attempt to write in Scots back then but thankfully this is changing).

I also find it disheartening to hear the notion of 'speaking properly' still being bandied about. As my English Language lecturer used to say in the early 90s, "the native speaker is always right". There's no such thing as speaking 'correctly' - there's only a generally agreed usage within a particular context.

Languages are always evolving and changing and some innovations stay. For example, the pronunciation of Shakespeare today is totally different to how it would have been spoken at the time. Queen Victoria would also have used post-vocalic r's in words like farm and it was the working class who missed them out (an interesting contrast with the status of RP accents today). Vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar are all constantly developing (split infinitive, anyone?!).

The cognitive advantages of bilingualism and linguistic manipulation in general are also well documented. Learning for yourself how to use language in different contexts is extremely valuable. Children identify with their peers, so a child in a school in a middle class area in a particular location will tune into the linguistic norms of that group and use them.

Being able to retain a natural usage of other versions of language for different contexts is also extremely useful, however. We like people who 'speak like us', it makes us feel that we are on the same wavelength and we naturally mirror the speech of others subconsciously in conversation so it's actually an important social skill.

[CommanderDaisy]

you can’t say correction was required when by your own admission you never practised regular, consistent modelling. OwlBeThere
Sorry I don’t understand what you mean?
Correction of my children’s speech was required as they were picking up and using colloquialisms and poor grammar from their daily interactions at school and with friends.

[DameSquashalot]

I don't correct DD if it's something I think she'll grow out of, but if she says something like "am I going ballet on Saturday" I correct her.