Or is boss correcting speech rude

[TeeedleDum]

My boss will correct myself and other colleagues during casual conversations if we say 'me and bob are going....' to 'bob and I are going....'. I find this really rude and unprofessional - I know 'bob and I' is correct and I would use this whilst working (e.g in meetings or in emails) but when I'm on my lunch break I don't expect to be corrected. Would you find this annoying/ patronising?

I don't correct people's grammar in real life. But I want to sometimes, for the speaker's sake as much as anything.

One of my teacher colleagues regularly used the same few errors. She constantly said pacifically for specifically, for instance. As an education professional she came across so poorly every time. She was also very ambitious, so she really wasn't doing herself any favours making such glaring errors. But no-one corrected her.

So yes, I'm glad I had a mum who made sure that I knew how language worked, and would quietly correct me.

oooh I'd never do that. Why would you!

If it's a letter going out to a client then ok, do correct but otherwise, no.

I work with someone who says "you was/we was".

I don't correct her because I'm not an arsehole, but I wince inwardly every time she says it. The problem is that she sends out emails that are grammatically incorrect and look unprofessional.

My dad was an old school English teacher at a grammar school, and my mum was also a teacher. So I was not allowed to get away with anything grammar wise!

I’m curious - does he correct men who are the same or higher professional status?

Either way I think it’s obnoxious.

no, the boss is not rude!!! If speech is lazy then you can rest assured that the written word will also be lazy! I work for a legal company and another legal company in another town has a legal assistant who is obviously speaks lazily!! She would write " yous done a job for us"!!!! What kind of English is that? I have actually said to my boss that he should inform her boss what she is writing because it does not reflect well upon this decades old company! He doesn't feel that he can do that! Listening to some people speaking, even television presenters, makes me wonder if they ever went to school to learn English! Reporters are no better!

@saraclara that is one of the few occasions where I'd risk a quiet word! If prefaced with 'because I know you're ambitious...'

When I was in London I had a flatmate who corrected me even though she was the one who was wrong. When I politely stood my ground, she told me, no, her mother taught her to speak properly. {awwwwkwwwwward} I had said something like ''she told Fiona and me'' and my flatmate corrected me
I would never have corrected her!

I was lucky to get a grounding in good English at a very young age as that's when it matters. My Irish mother went to a convent and the only mistake she and her siblings make is to mix up bring and take. All consonants pronounced. No vowels mangled. Grammar maintained. Standards could be higher when there were no children with foreign parents. If you have a child that speaks another language at home and they lack confidence speaking English, it'd seem mean to correct their English at school.

Noam Chomsky said that we all learn what we hear around us. We replicate that. That process is efficient and predictable and successful. That is our language.

It isn't fair to judge somebody whose brain did exactly what yours did and learned from their primary caregiver(s). That's how language is acquired.

Speaking badly isn't laziness. That was wired in.

Why would a cordial relationship be worse than a friendly one? What do you think cordial means?

@TeeedleDum what if you just smiled at them, eye contact, and ‘I’d rather you didn’t correct my speech thank you.’

it’s that or seethe every single time.

Only on MN would posters defend obviously obnoxious behaviour.

Yes, your boss is rude.

Honestly - he is way out of order. I would have to say something. Maybe find a meme or something and send it to him. Make a humorous thing about it. Always find humour is a great deflection without making it blow up.

Just look him straight in the eye and say “oh dear are you patronising me again?”

Actually I wrote 'me' first and then changed to 'myself' as I've got so in my head about using 'me' because of my boss. I thought if I got it wrong (which I clearly have) some people would be really nasty (which they have, for instance saying I should be shot)

Public pedants are rude arseholes, OP. Not just rude arseholes, but misguided and often actually incorrect arseholes. It is quite clear from your second example (where you were right and he was wrong) that your boss doesn't have a bloody clue about grammar. But also, as in most cases of twatty idiot-level attempts at pedantry, his 'correction' has not in any way helped you or improved your grammar, it's just made you doubt yourself and potentially just make different mistakes due to uncertainty.

People who say, all wide-eyed and faux-naïve, "But I don't understand why people wouldn't want to be corrected! Surely they want to use proper grammar?" are liars. They just enjoy feeling superior.

I think how you speak in a casual conversation is definitely going to be different to a formal conversation or written communication. So therfore it's rude to correct you. It also sounds like he's a know it all bore. So using grammar as a stick to beat you with. Is he like this with other stuff?

This thread is unbelievable!

We use different codes for writing and speaking. And different codes for speaking in different situations depending on who the audience is.

I use colloquialisms and ‘sloppy’ speech. My written work is not like this. I’ve spent 25 years writing formal English.

The op is having her lunch in an informal situation with her boss. She isn’t at work with him in a formal situation at that precise moment. He’s a twat who doesn’t understand social coding.

But the comments on here are just😂🙄😲. The boss doesn’t understand social rules and is an overbearing pedantic, humourless twat. If the op is an architect she’s spent 7 years at university, and will have submitted endless essays in formal English.

But it's very rude to treat adults like toddlers by correcting them when you're having a casual conversation

@TeeedleDum - The other day he corrected 'Andy was meeting me and Bob at the...' to 'Andy was meeting Bob and I...' and I think I'm correct there but I may be wrong? As I said, grammars not my strong point

Your boss was wrong here. It should be 'Andy was meeting Bob and me'. You should be able to take away 'Bob and' and the sentence will still make sense. 'Andy was meeting I' doesn't make sense.

If I were you, I'd buy a good grammar book or arrange to go on a grammar course.

It seems that some of your boss' obnoxious twat friends are on this thread.

Correcting the speech of others is very, very rude.

If someone corrects my grammar when speaking causally my go to response is ‘but you understood what I was saying though right?’. To me that’s all that matters when it comes to communicating, is it understood. Yes? Great, mission accomplished

one of the great things about language is how adaptable and fluid it really is, each new generation brings new words and even changes the meaning of current words. Anyone who uses the word ‘cool’ to mean ‘good’, you have used a newer version of that meaning of that word. otherwise we would all be speaking in ye olde times

Grammar is more important when it comes to writing anyway. You can infer the meaning in verbal speech but it’s harder when in writing. ‘Let’s eat Grandma’ vs ‘Let’s eat, grandma!’

Why does she need a grammar course if she’s an architect?

As a manager, I would quietly correct my team's major grammatical and spelling errors in written reports, because it looks unprofessional and lacks credibility in professional arenas to have mistakes.

I would also rehearse verbal responses with them when they had to attend court or large formal meetings, mainly because they were nervous about it.
Grammatical corrections and the substitution of standard professional words or phrases for everyday speak built confidence.

At lunch or privately in the office? Never.
I wouldn't have had the cheek.

The split infinitive ‘thing’ was started by 18th century grammarians, who argued that because you couldn’t split a Latin infinitive, and Latin was (to them) a ‘perfect’ language, you should therefore not split an English one.

Which is clearly bollocks, up with which we should not put (to paraphrase slightly Winston Churchill)

I’d put money on him not correcting the grammar of those he views as equals or superior to him. I’d rather speak slightly incorrectly than be so pompous as to think it was on me to make sure other grown adults in a professional setting need to be chided on how to speak correctly.

And to all the pedants on this thread, I don’t need you to point out anything I’ve written incorrectly as I really don’t care 😬

@TeeedleDum , it’s quite common to think that ‘I’ instead of ‘me’ - e.g. in ‘between you and I’ is always correct.

I had a friend who frequently said that, and wouldn’t have dreamt of correcting her, but at the same time I’m 100% sure she’d have wanted to know.

Excellent grammar is worthless if you don't have the manners to go with it.