I done me best, but...

This might be the chance to vent my feelings. Too good to miss. I get so wrangled when our Prime Minister when making his speeches, always says ter instead of to. For someone with an expensive education such as his, I would expect an example in grammar. I am so busy listening for this error, I realise L haven't heard a word he has said.

I think it's a shame we are losing out accents and local sayings.

I have not lived in my home town for almost 30 years but when I have gone back, my accent thickens and I start using words and sayings I thought I had forgotten.

I remember my husband (who is not from my home town) being helpless with laughter when my friend was telling me a tale and she said she was 'sweating on't top line'. He had no idea what she meant.

I knew exactly what she meant - was getting a bit panicky. I am not sure where it comes from. Possibly from the cotton mills??

I do get annoyed with 'could of' instead of 'could have'.

Also saying borrow instead of lend and vice versa.

Might have gone a bit of topic here

My bette noir? - Haitch! Even heard it on radio4, my god what is the world coming to? (Irony)

My mother worked for the GPO as a telephonist and she picked me up all the time on how I speak- even now some people think I'm posh as I enunciate clearly and can add the necessary g’s and t’s. (Note to self need more tonic).

If I can help by sharing Facebook posts about missing people, lost dogs, etc. I always do so.
This morning there was a post saying how upset a family was because their caravan had been 'robbed'. Wanting to help spread the news, if it had been taken, I messaged, "Has it been robbed, or stolen?" Back came the reply, "Robbed."
"What is missing?" I asked. "The caravan. It's been robbed off the drive."
Sometimes using the wrong word can cause a lot of confusion!

While I sometimes feel a little irritated by such errors, I would never try to tell an adult that they aren't well educated like what I am! ?

Aldon & Yammy so good to hear. I love my Norn Iron accent and our wee words for certain things...a poke instead of an ice cream cone as an example, but I know some now who would cringe at some of our sayings and use of certain words

There appear to be between 10 and 21 languages indigenous to the UK and probably some dialects that are not separate languages.
Sometimes, therefore, we may hear something that sounds wrong to us but may actually be correct!
That aside, I don't think there is much point in trying to correct (real) errors in other adults unless you know they would prefer you to do so. Best to value their good points and bite your tongue probably.
If the friend, colleague or relative is going to give a speech or present a report to someone, hopefully they would welcome comments and corrections from others.
It's really only in official publications or speeches by politicians etc that I find myself getting annoyed at errors. I have been known to contact a company to point out an error in grammar, punctuation or spelling. Mine are, of course, always perfect!

I remember going to see the teacher on parent's evening at school, and she said "I ain't got no problem with xxxx". My husband and I just looked at each other. She left shortly afterwards.

i am from scotland and we have different ways of talking, i hate when someone corrects me and the way i am speaking, you would only have to correct me once and i would tell you to shut up and mind your own business. the uk has so many different dialects and ways of speaking.

Grammar dialect and regional accents are very different things Poor grammar ought not to be encouraged Dialects must be nurtured and regional accents accepted as valid

Another from N East Scotland, and grew up speaking Doric. Seadragon, my granny also used ‘ contermashus ‘. I knew what she meant, but never knew where it came from until I saw the real word in your post. I thought that her word was the real one! I went to a grammar school after the eleven plus, and I remember relatives and neighbours telling me that I’d have to speak posh when I went to my new school. I became bilingual!

I moved from the Scottish Borders up to Aberdeenshire and was lost for a while, 'cos it's Doric you find up here. First time somebody asked "ye a'right ma quine?" I felt very privileged to have fit in well!

(It means "are you alright my girl?") Quine is used for girls & women of all ages. The male equivalent is "Loon".

I have to admit though to being a bit of a grammar policewoman myself.

It's mostly punctuation - or lack thereof - that sets me off, but I cannot bear, for example, hearing Jonathon Ross leaving letters off the ends of words.

nannypiano

This might be the chance to vent my feelings. Too good to miss. I get so wrangled when our Prime Minister when making his speeches, always says ter instead of to. For someone with an expensive education such as his, I would expect an example in grammar. I am so busy listening for this error, I realise L haven't heard a word he has said.

Don't worry *nannypiano" he never says anything useful/true anyway.

At the end of the day… who gives a ?!

When I was at primary school in the 50s, in quite a poor area, the teachers went to great lengths to get everyone's grammar reasonably correct. They also managed to get most children reading, some slower than others but enough to get by.

Witzend. Brilliant love it Frightfully good !!

Nannypiano. Fret not you haven’t missed much!!

There's a time and a place for everything.

In speech, I almost always use the contraction it'll, not the full it will. In informal writing, very rarely, and, having given this some thought (my excuse being that I had nothing better to do as I ate breakfast ), I don't think I have ever used it in formal writing.

That's why, as I read an email from Barclays this morning about the introduction of new charges for replacement debit cards, the words, " ..., it'll arrive ..." stopped me in my tracks, seeming odd to me in a formal business correspondence.

I don't see it as wrong, but it did feel out of place, more so than the other contractions in the email, such as we'll and you'd.

Maybe on another day, though, I would not even have noticed it or given it any thought.

Lern yersel Geordie used to be a popular book up here in the NE. My SiL in Cheshire (and her family) also say - going golf or going shop.

Accent is one thing, but IMO grammar is quite another, and IMO it’s unhelpful to tell or imply to anyone (perhaps especially schoolchildren) that basic grammatical mistakes such as ‘we was’ or ‘I done it’ don’t matter.

They may not in future, but depending on the sort of job they’re aiming for, such ‘quirks’ could very likely hold them back or affect their chances of promotion.

I know it’s popular to assume that nobody but nitpicking old pedants care about these things any more, but I really don’t think that’s true.

Thanks grannybuy and poshpaws, Doric is the 4th language I could not remember before. You've both reminded me.

Oh that's "fraffly" brilliant Witzend .. really made me laugh out loud!.. ?

I sympathise with the OP's annoyance but it's misplaced. It's more disappointing when someone is unable due to stupidity to express an opinion .

Unusual vocabularies are not evidence of stupidity. It can be stupid to cling to what some school taught was 'proper' English.

Witzend:

"depending on the sort of job they’re aiming for, such ‘quirks’ could very likely hold them back or affect their chances of promotion."

True. It's best for the children to learn standard English for that reason, and also because learned books are written in standard forms of language.

However children also learn to be creative .Unusual or local languages are often more sociable and more creative than standard forms, so the two sorts of English are taught, and the children are taught the proper occasions for the use of the one or the other.

I grew up in NZ but my mother, who thought she spoke the King's English (though she had a chi chi accent from her childhood in the British Raj) hated the Kiwi accent.
I was conflicted but found solace later in life when I read Bill Bryson's book
"Mother Tongue" It explains how language and accents develop. Words taken to America, for example, were lost here but are still used there. ie Gotten.

I married a Scot (I loved his voice) and am now trying to learn Gaelic to challenge my ageing brain and to encourage my DGC who are also being taught in school.

As a native scouser I began to lose my local accent when I moved into a professional environment. I lost it entirely when I became an academic as my overseas students would not have understood me.

I still miss the people and the humour.