Pronunciations

It has never annoyed me if someone mispronounces a word. I have done the same I know. The question is what do you do?

My friend has mispronounced gilet incorrectly for a long time and would be upset to be corrected or worse giggled at by an acquaintance and not a friend. So I feel bad for not preventing that.

Medical terms are a minefield. Clopidogrel we call cloppy dog. I agree Rituximab is not too difficult I got used to that very quickly, but some of the other imabs are a nightmare.

I will wait for my friend to dress up on a cold day and admire her gilet.

I would never correct a grown-up's pronunciation, or grammar, although I probably automatically would correct a child.

Nor would I dream of employing what I consider to be the wrong way of saying anything, just because a person whom I was speaking to did. I continue saying the word as I usually do. If the other person queries it, I would just say, "Well, that's how we say it in the part of the country where I grew up."

Sorry to disappoint marydoll but I don’t want to try your ham 🤣
Well I pronounced skedule not shed ule but wihich is American and which is English ???

Fairycakes

Susie
I do wish people would pronounce “harassment” the British way rather the American way.

And I wish people would pronounce Schedule the English way, and not the American

The French way you mean?

As for the question in title. As so often, it just depends. If it is a question of 'class' or regional accent, or genuine mistake, then it is rude to correct in most cases. This especially so if you know that this person is not an English native speaker. Same for grammar btw (and this on Internet Forums!). Just rude and in fact, ignorant.

One positive way to 'correct' is to re-use the word correctly in your reply, and hope it may be picked up.

Of course if someone is trying to learn the language and has asked to be corrected, as they wish to improve, then it is a different matter.

I have a friend, highly educated and well-read, who goes through life approximately right. She mispronounces place names, spells my name wrongly, is oblivious to her surroundings and totally ignorant of so many ordinary things ( never heard of Wilko, never been to Ikea, never eaten baked beans) She lives in a time warp which she doesn’t know exists.
Mispronouncing words simply doesn’t matter to her.

I had a very sweet and elegant aunt in Scotland who was widely travelled and supplied shortbread to Maceys in New York as well as Harrods and Fortnums.
However she still insisted on referring to “bag-you-ets” (baguettes) and “giletts” (gilets)
Nobody minded in the slightest.

I do like 'bag-you-ets'. I think I'll start calling them that.

Both my mother and my DIL were born in other countries and did not come to the U.K. until they were in their mid twenties. Both were/are multi-lingual and both were/are determined to speak correct English so always insisted that we point out any mistakes. There have been some howlers along the way but who cares. We often simply incorporated them and they became family jokes.

Our family have always been wordsmiths and we love playing with language, often making up our own new words, so incorporating mistakes just adds to the fun. Both mum and DIL love the different British accents and all our quirky idioms, sayings and proverbs.

I rather like the idea of bag-u-ettes too. I can see that catching on. 😁

Having lived in Germany for over 40 years now I would be quite happy if someone corrected my pronunciation as

- there are some new words I haven't heard spoken and only seen written down.
- I am used to words being pronounced as they would be spoken in the original language as we speak several languages in our family
- pronunciation of familiar words in the UK has changed since I left (CONtribute and DIStribute really bother me)

I only knew the pronunciation haRASS(ment) before I left.

"reSEARCH" was always the verb and "REsearch" the noun.

In our family we had a couple of Navy pronunciations as our Dad was in the Navy in the war. He always said LOOtenant instead of LEFtenant and skedule instead of schedule, although the skedule thing might have been meant facetiously.

It wasn’t pronunciation, but I had a colleague who always said e.g. ‘I rung her’. I never did correct her, but as she’d told me, she was very conscious of her lack of education and I’m sure she’d really have liked to know.
It’s very difficult when you don’t want to embarrass someone, or come across as a know-all, though.

Exactly, I have had many friends who left school at 14 and spoke 'non standard' English. Correcting them would have been so rude and embarrassing. Like 'was you frit?' or 'I were right mardy'. Or talking about their 'prostrate' problems, etc.

The only way to 'correct' is to repeat correctly in a reply- without making a point of it.

I fail to see the connection with the school leaving age and can only assume their use of idioms was because they were rather elderly friends , given that the school leaving age was raised to 15 with effect from 1 April 1947.
PS nothing wrong with regional idioms such as “frit “ or “mardy” !

Correcting them would have been so rude and embarrassing

Au contraire it might have been highly amusing from a non-native speaker! 🤣🤣🤣.

I corrected my best friend when she referred to a poinsettia as a poinsietta. I don’t think she minded.

I am from the north east but live in the East Midlands now and my husband (from the East Midlands) is constantly correcting the things I say. What gives him the right cos it gets on my tits!!! He has been told that I don’t like it on several occasions. Also his mother was just the same when she was alive. I am a Mackem and proud of it!!! Happy New year 2024!

For ages I had got into a habit of saying “up ‘the’ north” instead of just saying “up north” until a friend mentioned it and asked why do you always say “up ‘the’ north” lol. I just did not realise but was thankful she pointed this out. I now make an effort to omit the word ‘the’ when referring to up north! lol

I wish I could correct television presenters and reporters who insist on saying ‘nucular’. If you know how the word is spelled, how can you reach that pronunciation? Rather like the Americans and ‘aluminium’.

The more embarrassing the error, the bigger the favour you are doing the speaker by correcting them..

An example that springs to mind is of a French student who told me that he liked "to make love to people".
That's what I thought, anyway, and it took some time to work out that he meant that he liked "to make laugh to people", or in better English, to make people laugh.
Yes, he was bright red with embarrassment when i told him what I honestly thought he had said, but he never said it wrong again, and I bet that if he still remembers it he will laugh about it now. 😁

With my fellow native English speakers, I generally try to ignore their mispronunciations, or at most make a point of using the correct version in my reply, hoping that they will notice the difference.
There are only certain family members who I would dream of openly correcting, and they do the same for me when necessary - these are usually words that I have previously only encountered in print, rather than in speech.

That said, I do find it hard to ignore people pronouncing chorizo as chor-it-so, and regularly scream at the TV when I hear it from yet another celebrity chef!

east african friend would often say that she would flash me.
this is common parlance in east africa.
someone sends a text message, then to alert the recipient, they ring their mobile but cut off quickly before they can answer.
so that the person will look at their phone and notice that they have a new text message, and read it.
text messages are cheaper than talking.
i explained what to flash someone meant here, and suggested the word ping instead.
she had already asked me for eng lang notes, and was v grateful to not say flash again.

My DH pronounces Foliage, as Foilage 🤔, but I know what he means after all these years.
(Or at least I think I do).

HelterSkelter1

It has never annoyed me if someone mispronounces a word. I have done the same I know. The question is what do you do?

My friend has mispronounced gilet incorrectly for a long time and would be upset to be corrected or worse giggled at by an acquaintance and not a friend. So I feel bad for not preventing that.

Medical terms are a minefield. Clopidogrel we call cloppy dog. I agree Rituximab is not too difficult I got used to that very quickly, but some of the other imabs are a nightmare.

I will wait for my friend to dress up on a cold day and admire her gilet.

I love mispronouncing the word clopidogrel with my GP.. it sounds so wonderful as cloppy dog rel.. and he always says it differently.. not such a nice sound..but then my favourite french word is donc

English is a difficult language as there are so many exceptions. Just think how many different ways the letters OUGH are pronounced. I imagine most people for whom English is a foreign language would appreciate being corrected, whereas most native speakers would find it rude.

This, exactly. And exactly if the native speaker comes from a more 'modest' background, and left school early to go straight into service, agriculture, mining or factory work.

Which century are we talking about here?
Service? Mining?

Whatever, it would be a guaranteed lead balloon to be “corrected” by a non-native speaker!

Yes, many of my slightly older friends went straight into work in the 40s and 50s. And others into industry in the 60s and 70s.

(oh stop it Maw- it is just getting tedious! On and on, and on, Ariston!).