AIBU: Slang, pronunciation, and more....

[GummyDrops3]

I grew up speaking what I believe to be reasonably good RP English. My wife grew up in the US and needless to say she sounds a little different.

"Want to" becomes wanna.
"Got to" becomes gotta.
"Isn't it" is innit. (It's not US, but she's picked it up somewhere).
...there is a long list...

This is all her personal choice growth/development. However, I do feel strongly about how our children learn to speak as they grow up. They're still small... but, they are already using some slang here and there.
I'd really like them to not pepper their speech with slang and for them to be articulate when they need to be.

The obvious issue is that the way dear wife speaks acts as a model for their language. She spends more time with them. So does one ask her to improve the way she speaks? AIBU in asking that (I think I am...) - but it still really gets under my skin when my daughter says 'innit'.

Is there a solution for all this?
Is there a way I can encourage good speech?

I just wanna say I have no advice but good luck

Stop being such a snob, innit.

Why is one good and the other not good ? Both are legitimate forms of English.

I’m so with you on this. Just keep correcting the children and leave your wife alone.

What I find baffling is you have chosen a wife who speaks like that in the first place and you obviously love her...but you think your children shouldn't speak like her. Why? Your children are half of her and you fell in love with her the way she is so I'm sure your children will be fine either way.

Did you not think of this before you married?
Aside from the language 'differences' (pissed instead of pissed off, gotten, etc), there's spellng to consider. This they will hopefully be taught at school, but look out for missed 'u's (neighbor), missed 'l's, etc
Most importantly...gravy. American 'gravy' bears no resemblance to even the lumpiest English gravy. Indeed, it should be illegal for them to call it that!
Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée for English gravy now!

You've chosen the wrong partner if you feel so strongly about this. In reality as long as they are exposed to both they will develop their own style and be able to pick and choose as they grow. As long as they have a wide vocabulary and confidence to communicate there won't be much to worry about.

My late DH and I had/have two different northern accents. DD grew up with the faintly posh south of England accent prevalent among her friends and at school.

The same is likely to happen with your children, so it depends on the prevailing accent in social life and school.

The spoken slang is different, and you can't really fight this as long as it's not rude. As long as they write Standard English and confine slang for writing relevant direct speech then they'll be fine. Their teachers will correct this.

Send them all to elocution lessons if it bothers you that much.

How your chid speaks will largely come down to the area you live in. But as they get older I'd definitely expect some slang bruh.

"If ya wanna be my lover ya gotta get wiv my friends..." - The Spice Girls

Is your wife actually able to articulate in what you think is a standard, correct manner? For example, if she were giving a public presentation and understood that speaking formally and articulating clearly would be to her advantage, could she (with effort and concentration) consistently say want to and isn't it? If so, then I think your best bet is to get her onside with the idea that it's advantageous to be able to speak standard English when the occasion calls for it, and so it's a skill that the children should learn. With both of you reinforcing it, they'll eventually figure out about formal vs. casual speech and how to "do" each. If she can't or won't enunciate, you have a different issue because if you present the ability to speak clearly and formally as a life skill or a big advantage and she literally can't do it, that's a bit awkward.

Forget about accents and US vs UK usage for now; they'll most likely end up with the accent of wherever you live but pick up vocabulary, intonation, enunciation, etc. from both of you. An occasional 'erbal or sidewalk or cookie won't do them much harm especially as teachers, etc. will likely know that they have an American parent; it's the perception of unintentional sloppiness, or excessive casualness, that you want to avoid - and most of all, the perception that they don't know that their everyday speech patterns can come across as excessively informal in some contexts.

You notice your wife’s way of speaking because it’s different from yours. It isn’t worse, or less correct, it’s just different. Your children will learn as they get older that some words and pronunciations are more appropriate for casual speech, some are more appropriate for formal speech, some are only used in writing, and so on. They’ll learn this because they’ll be exposed to language from lots of different people in lots of different contexts. For now, their mum is their primary model of language, so they have a lot of her linguistic habits. You can choose to make her feel uncomfortable and self-conscious about her (perfectly normal and not at all wrong) way of speaking, in hopes that you can thereby exercise a rigid control over your children’s linguistic development. But the likelihood is that they’ll develop substantially the same use of language as if you hadn’t intervened. The only major difference will be that they’ll have a somewhat more pissed off mother for a while.

The way we use language is intimately connected to our personal identity. You really can’t tell someone that the way they naturally speak to their children needs “improvement” without risking that they will be very hurt by it.

Instead, I’d advise that you do some reading about linguistic prescriptivism and child language development. Ideally, this will help you gain a more nuanced understanding of where your ideas about “good” language come from, and support you to encourage your children’s healthy linguistic development without enacting snobbish and illogical linguistic prejudice.

My mother had a rule that dialect was okay, but slang was not. I didn't then know which words were which, but I did know they were all non-standard, fine for the playground, but not in the classroom. (I mostly discovered which were dialect words when I went to uni and people didn't know what I was on about.)

Children do learn to use different registers for different situations, so I wouldn't worry too much. But they will probably pick up lots of slang st school over the years, and you're likely to hear it all so prepare yourself for the ride.

Well, I have to commend you on the stealth American bashing. Quite original, one could say.

Do you not have similar dialects and speech quirks amongst the English? Or is this one of the quaint American shortcomings that are all the rage to look down on 🤣

Sorry just to add if you think “got to” is better than gotta… then you have lost all credibility as “got to” isn’t exactly proper, now is it?

You should be annoyed at “have to” vs “haveta” 🤨

They'll be influenced by the people they meet, too. My DH has not only a Norwegian accent, but still sometimes phrases things in a way that would sound odd to a British ear.

"The rice cooks" instead of "the rice is cooking."

"There is shopping to be done" instead of "we need to go shopping".

Lots of other little things. Hard to describe unless you hear it. DC sometimes copy him and sometimes don't. Mostly not, really. They don't sound Norwegian when they speak English, and they don't sound English when they speak Norwegian.

Doesn't really matter. Slang? Again, they'll be informed by who they're around growing up in school, too, and what they watch. Unless it's offensive, does it matter?

Teaching the appropriate language for different settings is probably the most important. I couldn't get worked up about it.

If your wife has this slang issue then it might be impossible to have her change since she's an adult.

Doesn't it make more sense to correct your children when they get older?

If you wish your children to be able to naturally speak more like you, you will need to spend more time with them.

I hadn't realised Jacob Rees-Mogg was on MN

just make sure that Nanny has an acceptable standard of English and they'll be fine.

Written and spoken English are so different.
I expect English to be written properly, no slang or abbreviations.
Spoken though?! You are being unreasonable.
There's so many different accents out there.
We don't all speak the Queen's (sorry, the King's) English you know!

Your wife must be very tolerant is all I can say.

Carry on looking down on her like this and you will find your children end up speaking fully American English, when she leaves you and fucks off home with the kids.

I'm very articulate (although, perhaps not at 3:30am!) and 'pepper my speech' with slang. It hasn't ever stymied my opportunities in life.

My 6.5 year old twins have a very different accent to me, but are similarly articulate (appropriate to their much younger age) and they, too, use slang. It doesn't faze me, nor should it.

Got, gotten. Two words that should be made illegal. I admit, I do use 'got' on occasion, but it is a redundant word. Just like using also with and (there were 16 cars and several caravans also)

Thank you for all the responses.

As always there are quite a few which are genuinely unhelpful. Irrespective of the 'issue' it's sad that some replies take cheap shots at shaming and bullying as opposed to providing guidance.

After reading through the replies and a little soul searching, my take-away is that accent was never an issue for me. However, excessive informality in all speech is. I think so long as the children learn context surrounding vocabulary and use it appropriately there shouldn't be any problem. I'm probably more sensitive to this right now given what I hear around me, but I also need to step up more and make sure that they learn the difference between the two over time.

Perhaps by the time they grow up "innit", "bruv", and "wiv" will be common in PMQ and board level presentations.