WHAT?

[word]

Right. Showed sby a video of our hols. On it was a bit where my DS wanted to play the yes or no game - ie you are not allowed to answer any question with yes or no.

I was enjoying watching it until we got to the bit where DS said (on the video), "Mu-uuuum... ?" and as I knew he was trying to catch me out, instead of replying, "Yes, darling?" I said, "What, darling?".

At this point the people watching the video decided to pull me up on my English!

"It's not "what", it's "pardon"". Cue guffaws of laughter (they know I'm a pedant).

WTF?

Firstly, I WAS PLAYING A SODDING GAME, secondly, does anyone answer "Muuuuuum?" with pardon? Thirdly, isn't it rude for anyone (apart from your parents perhaps) to critisize you, as a grown adult, for saying anything?

Finally, haven't I heard that truly posh people think that pardon is rude anyway? Are there any of you "truly posh" people out there, who could enlighten me?!
TIA

DD1 (3) says "URH?" when she hasn't heard something. Or even if she has heard it, but just wants to be annoying.

What should I say rather than toilet? I presume serviette should be napkin.

Lavatory, or loo if you must. Or don't mention it at all.

"Pardon" is awful. "I beg your pardon?" or "What did you say?" or "What?" (in a polite voice) is what you say if you didn't year someone.

So what should we say instead of 'toilet' then?

Loo is horrible. Lavvy?. Lavatory takes too long to say.

Or avoid the thing altogether and say 'bathroom' which is highly irritating cos it's...a toilet.

Loo is correct, but never what my MIL says ie 'I'm going on the loo'.

You never say where you're going - you just say "Excuse me". If you're asking where it is, lavatory or loo.

To powder your nose?

(I suppose 'bog' is out too then?)

This particular topic regularly drives me bananas - yes, according to the Debrett's, "If you mishear, then you say sorry or even the rather abrupt what, never pardon". Why is pardon rude? Because you are telling the other person to grant you a pardon for your mistake - (of course, if you misheard, it is not your mistake - although you might need your ears syringed...but you are still telling them to do it).
So, I say "What?", far easier. Might sound rude, but it isn't. If you don't like "What?", say "Sorry?" or "I'm sorry?" Sometimes, people say to my children "Don't say what, say pardon", they usually get the previous explanation.
By the way, by asking someone to pardon you, you are also indicating that they are in a social position to do so, e.g. a position above you...I wouldn't like people to take that impression and perhaps you wouldn't either.
If this sounds pedantic, it's no more pedantic that being irritated by things like "should of" or "could of" being using incorrectly instead of the correct "should have" or "could have" ("I should of gone home earlier" makes as much sense as "I should it/a/the/them/an gone home earlier" - insert any other preposition) or saying "pacific" or "pacifically" or "pecifically" instead of "specifically".
All these mistakes serve to reduce the accuracy of what we say - they also give a bad impression. I can understand that might not matter to some people, it continues to matter to a lot of others. Ultimately, there is so much information available in books and on the Internet about correct usage, it is easy to use English correctly. I have no doubt that anyone who bothers to respond will use the old argument about the way English is currently spoken being the correct way. If that means that eventually it will no longer be possible to be specific (or should that be pacific?) about what we say, you are on a slippery slope...
I won't even start on the declining use of the subjunctive ("If I were you...", "I wish I were...", "I dreamt I were...")...

I suppose 'da f*ck you say????!!!' isn't polite then

Muradjames - are you me?!
All of the niggles listed irk me beyond belief.

'Muummm'...

'Pardon, darling' would have been totally wrong because you heard what he said. The answer was to show he had your attention and to elicit the rest of his question. In which case, 'What, darling' is entirely correct - better than 'Yes, darling', really.

Muradjames - totally correct: and also, as you imply, it's extremely rude for someone else to tell your charge what is correct or not. a polite person would never do that.

pardon sounds really coarse anyway.

(i have to say, though, that although i fully support what as correct, i can't call the toilet a lavatory or a loo because i think it sounds more coarse - the toilet is the French word and means the room in which you perform your duties, not the item upon which you sit
please correct me if i'm wrong!

and serviette is (again French) a paper tissue used in place of a napkin: a napkin cannot be paper by definition, it is cloth. therefore you can use serviette for the paper ones you get in cafes but must use napkin for the cloth ones you use at home/in restaurants.

Pardon would have been wrong in this context.

I know it is said that 'what' is correct if you haven't heard, but that just sounds very blunt and brusque, with a hint of irratation or disinterest to me, and usually sounds intentionally rude if used as just one word.

I was told to use pardon and tell my children to do the same, it just seems a gentler request to repeat, and the implication is 'pardon me for not hearing you or attending' rather than 'what did you say you weren't speaking clearly and I'm not that ibterested.'

I know these are my own impressions, but I'm sticking with them rather than an old book of rules written for the type of people who i'm unlikely to mix with and who don't exist much nowadays anyway. Pardon may have once been 'middle class' when that was abad thing, but is now just accepted usuage as we're all middle class nowadays.

I suppose that's the thing these days - it's good to know the correct usage so that perhaps you can choose not to use it where it would sound odd...!

i spent a summer hearing my Bristolian neighbour bellowing

"Don't say 'What?', say 'Pardon?'" to her two young boys

it all came to a dramatic halt when she called something out to her dear hubby 'Oward, who of course didn't hear her and said "WHAT??" and both children chorused "Don't say 'What?', say 'Pardon?'"

hahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

What is correct.

Although I try to encourage the DCs to say sorry, or could you repeat that. Du to the fact that most people correct them if they say what, and/or believe they are rude. I really can't be bothered to explain myself away each time they are corrected.

please repeat that.. or excuse me? watches steam rush from pendants ears!..what is just rude..especially to a person you don't know well

You could always go for a very brisk military-stylie 'say again?'

What isn't rude, as such, but it is abrupt and people who are not upper middle class may consider it rude.

I always thought "what?" was perceived to be a rude Americanisn. (I am American) But, I am now going to stand my ground and carry on with it.

Great post, murad. ANother one that irks me is when people say "I could care less". No no no. You couldn't care less! Otherwise you are telling me you care.

good post muradjames - but I did smile at the idea of something "sounding" rude but not "being" rude. Surely rudeness is in the eye of the beholder, as it were - and the truly polite thing is to modify your behaviour (in this case speech) so that the person to whom you are speaking believes that they are being treated with respect and politeness, even if it means curbing one's own natural pedantry. Surely putting someone else's actual feelings (even if they are misguided) above one's attachment to pedantry is, in a rather delightfully circular and possibly pedantic way, the politest thing to do?

DH, who is considerably posher than me, says "what".

It can easily sound rude, harsh, and abrasive.

I think this is an instance where the language has moved on, and "pardon" is now expected and accepted, no?

I'm just going to have to be lower-middle on this one.

settee serviette toilet

(crochets dolly to put over 'toilet tissue')

Pardon is definitely non-U

The correct interrogative is definitely "What"

Preferably barked

"Why is pardon rude? Because you are telling the other person to grant you a pardon for your mistake..."

I thought it was an abbreviated "I beg your pardon..." which isn't really telling someone.

But I'm probably wrong.

I refer you to this article, which is actually quite funny if you think about it, showing that pardon is a social solecism.

What amazes me about this is the presumption that the allegedly upper-class "what?" is necessarily more correct than the arguably more middle-class "pardon?"

They're both just styles of speech. Neither is more valid or correct than the other. Moreover it's only the psychotically class-conscious (and, in particular, those who are terrified of being found out to be of a lower class than the impression they want to project) that really give a damn either way.