Grammar - Am I being unreasonable?

[fulltimeworkingmum]

My DD age 4 and my DS age 2.5 go to Nursery 2 days a week and have obviously picked up some dreadful vernacular which horrifies not only me and my husband but also their grandparents. Why is it that they hear the Queen's English spoken at home where they spend most of their time yet they pick up the hideous colloquialisms of their carers in the short time they spend in day care?
I suspect I am overreacting and all will be well once they go to school but what does anyone else think?

As long as they are not learning obscenities I think you just have to ignore it. Once they are mixing with others they are bound the learn this along with all the other things you want them to learn. We had the other side. Both myself and DH have fairly strong yorkshire accents with grandparents using some dialect words. When the kids went to nursery they seemed to pick up a more 'queen's english' accent. However, they are now teenagers and speak more or less like us again. Perhaps your children will revert to family speak as they grow up.

Isn't that a risk you take when you send your children to nursery?

It doesn't change once they start school, it gets worse, they also get bullied for speaking in a different way. My son used to get laughed at (at first) for saying "excuse me" in the reception class.

Ha ha - this is a wind up, surely?

probably phoenix.

'me and my husband'?
surely you mean 'my husband and I'?
tut tut
grammar nowadays has gone to the dogs

It is 'me and my husband' as you would not say "which horrifies not only I but also their grandparents".

I was being sarcastic.

They always pick up what you don't want to - don't make a big deal of it and they will grow out of it!

The local dialect round us is to omit the "t" sound from words. DD is currently coyping it - which drives DS mad as he has a "t" in his name. (he has forgotten that he went through the same phase 2 years ago!)

fulltimeworkingmum I completely understand where your coming from.
Both my dh and I speak the queen's english and so did dd (she's nearly 4) until recently. She has started dropping t's ect which drives us mad (She has picked it up from a child at nursery)! We tell her that its not a nice way to speak and she is soon speaking well again.

It's actually 'which horrifies...my husband and me'!

Oh dear - what on earth are you worrying about? They are 4 and 2.5! The most important thing is that she is having a lovely time in her playgroup. It's irrelevent that her carers do not speak the 'queen's english' - as long as they are nice to your dd and encourage her play and social development. One dialect is no more important than another.

Most of the staff at a nursery get on or near the minimum wage. If they're employed as 16 year old trainees they get next to bugger all. You're not going to get anybody with an English degree. At the interviews, once you've ruled out the ones with sexually explicit tattoos, gum chewers, g-string flashers and ones that drink from a can of coke throughout, you take whatever's left.

It does annoy me! Nursery workers should be role models and teach children how to talk, and to do that they need to be able to talk themselves.

"Nursery workers should be role models and teach children how to talk"?

Well, up to a point, but what are parents for then? They can't abdicate all responsibility and then complain about the outcome.

One person's hideous colloquialism is another person's poetry. The broader their vocab the better so long as they know how to spell innit.

i just grin and bear it when DS's lovely carer greats me with (eg) "we done baking today!". At least he's had a fun day!

"teach children how to talk" Bad choice of words. Sorry.

You don't teach a child to talk. Children learn how to talk by listening to EVERYTHING that is said around them. I used to look after a girl who often spoke with an American accent due to American Barbie videos. If a child has 8 hours of "Innit, whatevah, drink of waw-er" etc per day, a child will start to talk like that.

nowt wrong wiv a bit of hetroglossia I 8 stagnation

dd has picked up all sorts. i just continue to set the example i want to set her, and talk about how different people say different things. i can't say a huge amount about it as most of dh's family 'get it wrong' so i wouldn't really want dd correcting half her family!

there's a lot of 'we was' and 'was you' plus several mistakes such as 'you've done that brilliant!' etc.

Just wait until they start school and start swearing

LOL Gerontius. Just what I was about to say.

Luckily dh & I have accents which would appall you speakers of the Queen's English so we don't have to worry about this - result

Thanks to nursery dd now announces "You are poo poo" followed by hysterical giggles Hasten to add she's got this from her playmates and not the nursery workers!

Fortunately I do know from dc1 that this is short-lived and it's us who have the most influence over their language development, well, until they become unintelligible again as teenagers.

My DS is exactly the same. He is nearly 4 and has realised that it annoys me intensely and therefore just doe sit more.

He runs round the house singing 'I'm going to have a BATH on the GRASS' instead of my lovely long vowels which I spent years cultivating.