to not want my dd's nursery to teach her to say "ta"?!

[mummy2isla]

Not to be snobby or anything .... ... but I HATE babies being taught to say "ta" - my dd (11 months) has just started in nursery and all the nursery staff tell her to say "ta" all the time - I don't like it, but have the feeling I would be a bit awful to ask them not to?

I don't think the op is unreasonable. i found that dd3 was using 'ta' a bit and I prefer thank you. I said as much to the nursery staff and they agreed with me - it hasn't been an issue since. I was fully aware that might make them think me a snob - that's fine.

Wow! I'm not from the UK, so I had no idea that "ta" was anything more than a sound an 11 month pre-verbal infant would make to indicate "thanks", or "here take this", or something similar. Much like "da" is a noise that may or may not mean "daddy" or "father".

My dd (16mo) says it, and I had no idea that some people would think she sounds thick as a result. I thought I understood this country after almost a decade of living her, but sometimes I am still amazing at what I can learn.

OrmIrian: 'Now I think loon is a fairly harmless word. I'd use it interchangeably with muppet myself.'

Personally I think loons are way above muppets and I'm hurt by your suggestion they're on a par

Oops! I meant: living here, but sometimes I am still amazed

How do the nursery staff manage to keep track of 30 odd children whose mums all have their own ideas of exactly what vocabulary is allowed? And how do they explain it to the children (Emily, you must say 'thank you' because your mum thinks anything else is common, but Taylor, you can say what you like, and Kaylie, I'm just going to take you down the corridor because Emily's mum doesn't want her to hear what your mum wants me to teach you)?

Yep, Almama, me too. I've been here for 15 years but some things still amaze me. Snobbery is so ingrained.

My apologies claire

Linguistically, there is no such thing as "good" and "bad" use of words - just standard or non standard. So "ta" is no better or worse than any other word - it is just opinion and preference, or prejudice, if you will that makes it "common"!

The thought of telling someone how to talk to my DS, and the correct words to use, makes me cringe. You might be training them to speak how you want them to, but you aren't teaching them much about good manners!!

BTW if anyone wants to save me the hassle of reading 9+ pages of comments - why is "ta" controversial here? I mean from an academic perspective, rather than from a personal/subjective one. I'm very curious now.

Don't be so tabloid? That's a joke, right?
This is so funny, I never came across anything like this till I came across Mumsnet! Can I just reiterate, the way people speak has nothing to do with intelligence. At all.

I kind of have the same problem with pardon. A word I know is perfectly acceptable. But having had it dinned into me in my childhood that pardon was "common" (don't ask me why, we weren't posh or anything) I have a sort of Pavlovian response to pardon and have to bite my tongue when my ds says it.

the actual exchange between screamingabdab and myself, cthea. as you can see, it was a fookin' JOKE and talking about the lack of comprehension thing. i used the word snobbisme ffs, as if i needed to underline the larky tone.

read from the bottom, obv.

By screamingabdab on Wed 27-May-09 19:34:42
Cheers for that insight grin

Contact the poster See this person's profile Contact mumsnet about this post By AitchTwoOh on Wed 27-May-09 19:33:12
yep, ta or thank you. so let's not load everything with snobbisme just cos the OP chooses to inculcate her child with the meaningless term thankyou rather than ta. plus, i don't care what you say... kids who say ta rather than thankyou sound a bit thick. grin

Contact the poster Contact mumsnet about this post By screamingabdab on Wed 27-May-09 19:32:22
I did teach mine to say ta because it's a perfectly, IMO, acceptable abbreviation of thankyou, and more important, is easy for them to say.

Contact the poster Contact mumsnet about this post By screamingabdab on Wed 27-May-09 19:30:14
Children learn the meaning of words by associating that word with an event, or an action. Of course they can't understand the meaning of the concept of gratitude, but they can learn that ta, or thankyou is a word you say when someone gives you something. Later on they learn why you say thankyou.

They will be helped in this process by ALSO hearing you say thankyou

it was utterly tabloid to take 'a bit thick ' and twist it into 'thick as shite' as you did, junglist.

and of COURSE the way people speak has NOTHING to do with their intelligence. so WHY, if your child can say thank you, get them to say 'ta'?

the way people speak, however, has a bearing on other people's perception of them. like it or not, it does. and it's sheer folly to say that it's only the case in the UK, it certainly happens across all English-speaking and Romance-language countries.

No I said I was thick as shite because I posted twice, not because of your comment. I was taking the piss out of myself.

oh right, sorry about that. my apologies.

AichTwoOh - I agree that in other countries the way people speak eventually has a baring on how they are perceived.. but in my experience, this would not be applied to a 11mo or 16mo, etc. In mine and other countries such judgments would come much later in life.

So I am amazed that this judgment could be applied to a pre-verbal infant using "ta" instead of thank-you.

Great Working Class Crimes, as defined by MN.

1. Consumption of Greggs sausage rolls / Fruitshoots
2. Shopping at ASDA
3. Not wearing Boden
4. Having a regional accent
5. Using the word 'Ta'

I know it's not everyone on here, far from it actually, but middle class snobbery rears its ugly head with alarming frequency.

napkin/serviette?

AitchTwoOh on Thu 28-May-09 12:07:35

"the way people speak, however, has a bearing on other people's perception of them. like it or not, it does. and it's sheer folly to say that it's only the case in the UK, it certainly happens across all English-speaking and Romance-language countries."

Exactly. In many places- including some where Mumsnetters live-, speaking too posh would be make people think of you as stuck-up and snobbish. It would alienate people as much as 'common' speech would alienate the dons at a college garden party.

I want my dc's to have the good manners to use their speech, like other aspects of their behaviour, to put other people at their ease.

Or are you saying it is only the perceptions of the upper segments of society that matter?

my baby wasn't pre-verbal at 11 mos. she had loads of words at that age. why, if she was capable of saying thankoo should i have inculcated her with 'ta'? any ideas?

cory you asked were babies really taught how to say it while not comprehending? i think particularly at nurseries and particularly grandparents, for some reaons, do this, so that nothing is handed over without an acompanying long drawn-out tttaaa-AAAh. it's pretty grim imo.

do you really think that's what i'm saying, cory?

I do also think that in some cases, accent does come into it. The DEMON other thread that I was flamed on was discussing how people who drop H's and T's are thick and lazy, but as I'm working class I don't see it like this, it's just the way I speak. Slang is also used regularly (or on a regular as me and my mates would say) . So although the way people talk does affect perception of their intelligence, that's just a belief, not a reality. I'm still not over the other thread really

KingRolo, I agree with your post, however I THINK I started off the Greggs thing by saying I didn't like the sausage rolls and it really snowballed (And I'm the biggest self proclaimed chav on here) .

AitchTwoOh on Thu 28-May-09 12:18:37
"do you really think that's what i'm saying, cory?"

Well, you did imply that a child should not be taught to use words like 'ta' because of the perceptions of society. This does seem to imply that you care more about the perceptions of that part of society that says 'thank you' than the part that says 'ta'. The OP was about telling the nursery staff that there preferred choice of wording is not acceptable- so that is clearly one segment of society whose perceptions are less important. (appreciate that you did not write the OP btw)

Personally, I would like my children to be able to fit in with those parts that say 'ta' and those that say 'thank you'; also, with people who say 'merci' and 'tack'.

I am currently in the situation of working with highly educated academics, but living in a working class/lower middle class area. In other words, my friends/dcs mates do not speak in the same way as my colleagues or as the people dd will (possibly) be meeting at university. I see this as an advantage: it makes for more learning.

I'm just not into value judgments: any word used in the right situation to the right people is a good word as far as I'm concerned. And any choice of wording that makes people feel ill at ease or amused when they shouldn't, it less successful.