When is it appropriate to correct someone?

[ItsFineReally]

Prompted by "Should I of gotten?"...

I am aware that if a post can be easily understood, despite spelling and grammatical errors, it's generally considered poor form to point out those mistakes.

Threads being derailed by multiple posters all making the same (but irrelevant to the issue) point can be frustrating as a reader. This must be moreso the case for the OP whose a genuine problem may be being overlooked while this is going on.

But... at what point is the error so egregious as to make it appropriate to correct someone? For instance, is pointing out that "lose" is the correct word, not "loose," ever helpful? Should errors be left uncorrected on social media altogether, or are there cases where it’s necessary to address them?

What’s your personal threshold for when you feel compelled to make a correction?

I did accidentally correct a good friend of mine because I thought she was joking! We were in a a restaurant and she ordered steak frites but pronounced it 'fritez' so I started laughing thinking she was making a joke along the line of 'mercy bucket' or something like that. Unfortunately it then became apparent that she actually thought it was pronounced like that.

It's a particular bugbear of mine with people who pronounce foreign words incorrectly but refuse to saying it correctly because they don't want to sound a 'snob' or 'posh' eg 'nugget' for 'nougat'. The British seem to one nation who are happy to be thought of as a bit thick oddly. Reality tv is full of them.

Agree, but I'd still rather someone told me I was saying it wrong than letting me crack on.

Yes, but it can be done simply by saying the word yourself correctly at some point, rather than overtly correcting.

Very true.

Totally agree which is what I usually do. I order steak frites, nougat and pronounce the Cacherel perfume Anaïs Anaïs correctly but it is generally met with complete hilarity and accusations of snobbery. 🤷‍♀️

Apparently it's not ok to correct someone saying something wrong but perfectly fine to laugh at and make fun of someone saying something correctly.

I once wrote brought instead of bought . Three posters corrected me in such a snarky way, making me feel upset and stupid.
Borrowed instead of lent is a bugbear of mine but I just think the correction and move on😀

Sometimes I feel like if people aren't corrected then they won't learn. Language will continue to descend into the sort of dreadful state of affairs commonly heard in America:

'He has went shopping'
'I shouldn't have went out with them'
'Bought this on mistake'
'Didn’t shut it properly on accident'
'It shouldn't of happened'
'He loaned it off me'

Or the spectacular:
'I could of went'

Sets my teeth on edge.

@financialcareerstuff

All it does is make people feel small and shamed for something largely not in their control.

It's completely within their control 🫤

@changecandles I'm with you. Although I left school at 15 many decades ago, I know it’s could have or could’ve. I also know it’s ‘my friend and I did whatever’. I see so many posts on MN that start ‘me and my friend’ or even worse ‘myself and my friend’.

I never correct anything on social media, for all the reasons explained above, but do I appreciate this little corner of MN.

Oh, I don't worry. But that's partly my point: pedantry is quite personal, isn't it?

Definitely, @ItsFineReally.

Everyone has their own pet peeves and things they're not bothered about at all.

Is it the case that spelling is prescriptive and therefore it's OK to correct that but not grammar which is more fluid?

Maybe. It's easy to look up a word to check that you have the right spelling, whereas not all grammar 'rules' are set in stone or easy to check. Look at the use of commas, for example! A lot of times when to use a comma is a style option or a matter of making life easier for the reader.

I will correct my children.

anyone else it would be obnoxious to do so. But

Agree with this.

More generally I'd only correct at work (where appropriate), my DC, or DH if I wanted to annoy him.

Of for have is an error that annoys me, but it's also a common one, so the posters claiming they had no idea what the OP meant by "should of gotten" (my autocorrect has no issues with that interestingly) just made pricks of themselves.

It's extremely tempting to correct people, as some do really butcher the language.

I do try to hang onto myself these days though, and sometimes just don't answer the post.

I often know the correct way to say it but don't on purpose so if you corrected me I'd just say yeah I know and choose to say it like that and you would probably look a bit daft .. don't presume people say things because they don't know better ..

The 'gotten' thing is a choice . Everyone knows it's not 'correct ' surely ?!

It may not be "correct" in England but it is in Ireland and the US at least. It used to be correct in England too.

I only correct someone on social media if they have been being absolutely horrible or if their grammar really makes their intent incoherent.
I correct people who are writing to me as part of their job because if I am receiving a service from them I expect a basic level of competence.
On social media I frequently scroll past posts which are very badly written as they just make my teeth itch.

The 'gotten' thing is a choice . Everyone knows it's not 'correct ' surely ?!

Only if you've got rather narrow ideas about English. 'American English' is increasingly become the standard international form, 'correcting' it looks a bit daft tbh.

I don’t do it at all, I think it’s unkind and could embarrass someone

It's appropriate to correct your child because you want them to speak correctly and it's appropriate for a teacher to correct a student. If someone asks for your help, then it's appropriate to correct them.

I have no idea about someone's learning difficulties or education and wouldn't want to embarrass them.

@niadainud and @ItsFineReally you touch on two instances when I do think it can be ok to correct.

1. When someone is obviously throwing their own intellectual weight/snobbery around, I can see it being an effective put down!

1. A mispronunciation like Magdalene is different to me to errors like 'should of'. The former could happen to anybody, and I agree there's not much shame there unless the person correcting is snarky about it. It is also an isolated misunderstanding that can be quickly fixed. I would still take care about how/if I corrected this, but I think it can be fine. In contrast, 'should have ' etc really is emblematic of an overall lower education and attainment level, and/or social class, regional identity. Someone who says that probably makes numerous other equivalent mistakes also, and cannot just 'fix themselves' with one quick comment. It is baked in and said hundreds of times a week for their whole life. So I really don't think it's pleasant to point a finger at it.

Surely the correct phrase is "if I were" and NOT "if I was"

Midge Ure has a lot to answer for!

That's what the poster was saying, though - her correct 'if I were' was incorrectly 'corrected' to 'if I was'.

As a professional editor, I think it's appropriate only when someone is paying me to do so.

Personally, I have absolutely no desire to correct people in 'real life' and grammatical mistakes don't grate on me at all, because 99 percent of the time it's perfectly clear what the poster meant anyway.

I judge self-appointed grammar police far harder than I judge people with poor grammar.

Actually it wasn't my "if I were", it was a quotation from somewhere that the friend-of-a-friend was objecting to. Normally I'd just have ignored it, but she was so smug insisting she was right, on multiple comments.