Please come and give me your opinion on this moral dilemma........

[Yorkshirepudding]

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I would tell a friend if she/he was a close friend yes and yes I would want to know.

I think best not to tell, but to try and set things right yourself as much as you can.

I think I'd want to know.
If you decide to tell your friend, be prepared for them to shoot the messenger.

any way you can nip it in the bud at source?

hmm
if it was me, maybe I woudn't want to know...depends on how upsetting it is, and whether I was likely to find out some other way. Would be better to have some warning from a friend first in that case.

I'm not sure - it would depend who was doing the gossiping - if it were people I trusted, then yes, I would want to know... strangers at the school gate, no.

Whoever is gossiping should be reminded with no ambiguity to keep their mouths shut in your presence or be adult about it and tell it like it is to the person concerned.

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I would at first try to do something about it without telling friend,if after that it was still happening,then I would tell the friend.

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can't friend B tell this person to stop it, or set her straight somehow? why did she come to you?

What's the gossip (without being too specific)? A lot depends on what kind of gossip it is.

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Could you approach friend B and say something like "you wouldn't believe what I've heard about A ............ I know it's a pack of lies who on earth would spread such gossip????"

Then run quick!

by friend B, I meant the gossiper btw!

Don't tell your friend - you have no real info apart from what your other friend has told you.

The peson who has heard the gossip first-hand needs to stick up for the person being gossiped about and make it clear that this is disgusting, immature behaviour.

Why tell the 'victim'? It will only upset them and they won;t be able to do anything about it. Better to nip it in the bud and then ignore it. If the 'victim' then finds out about it the friend can say she told them it was ridiculous and to stop.

Haven't read all the posts, but to answer the OP:

A girl I knew was being really nasty about me behind my back and dp heard about it but didn't want to tell me because he thought I'd be upset (right) and because I would probably never see her again so it didn't matter.

I bumped into her about a year or two later and she was pg, I was all nice and friendly and full of congrats - told her that if she needed anything for the baby I had loads of stuff that she could have and said that we really should get together for a drink or something. She was nice and friendly back and agreed.

Told dp and he was horrified at the two-facedness of her, told me what she'd said about me and then I felt like a total mug.

If I had known what she had said, I would still have been pleasant to her but I wouldn't have gone overboard like I did.

I think you should mention something.

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think it depends what the gossip is. If it was something along the lines of that she was having an affair, then I would feel the need to mention it because A, if it is true and you just don't know about it then she needs to know that the info is out there in the public domain, and B, if it's untrue, then she needs to be aware in case the info comes to the knowledge of others that could be hurt by it ie dh/partner of other person...

Obviously I don't know whether that is the gossip but using that as example