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Sometimes my mother mispronounces a word and I just repeat what she said using the correct word so that I don't make her defensive. She used to say "prostrate" instead of "prostate."
...What I refer to is a situation when you are speaking with someone (one-to-one or in a group) who tries to correct your grammar or pronunciation in the middle of the conversation. How do you respond?...
"Do want your entire face rearranged, or just your mouth?"
How about a simple "thank you" and go on speaking? The corrector will be acknowledged in a non-snarky way, and the speaker will divert attention back to himself.
Best response when someone calls out your grammar or pronunciation
I repeat the statement/word the way I said it, then I repeat it the 'correct' way. I then launch on a side story on the subject of the correction that is so long that usually everyone just says, "OK, get on with it."
And then I repeat my statement/word the way I originally said it and pickup the discussion from there.
The next time the individual who corrected does it again, most people say, "Don't get him started."
Someone gets in a " debate" with another poster and after a few posts brings up a spelling error to discredit the other one's post.
Whenever I see that I post the following............." it has been my experience that once someone looks for spelling errors they have lost the argument because they can't find anything else in the post to discredit the poster with "
This is true.
I've seen it done many times to/by fellow CD members.
There's one individual on here who is a writer by profession. He once (thought he ) diced a poor fella to pieces using that defensive technique. It didn't bode well for him. It just reinforced, and read like, the other guy was right about everything he had (poorly) written.
It seems like he had, in fact, read him like a book.
I often hear prostate mispronounced but I don't ever correct people. I did correct my children as they were growing up but only in private and in a good way. I find people that correct others to be rather self-righteous and rude. I don't even like to see people point out errors in other people's posts.
I have a real genuine southern drawl but I can put on the dog and speak correctly. I was in NY in a store and asked a sales associate to help me find something. She called over another sales clerk and asked me to repeat my request and then two more. I realized then they just wanted to hear me talk. So, of course, I didn't attempt to hide my drawl then, which is difficult to do. I was not offended, they loved it, not making fun of me but just wanting me to talk some more.
Location: Prince Georges County, MD (formerly Long Island, NY)
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It depends-- with my siblings and parents, we're quick to point out grammatical errors. We don't do it to be mean, it's just our way of picking on each other
Among friends? I would never (okay, I have a couple of friends I'd correct for fun). Like somebody else said, it really makes that person look stupid to interrupt with a totally irrelevant side point. If everyone else understood, then there's no need to correct it.
Okay, so the one time I did I have to correct my mom in public was when she was helping me and a friend with biology homework-- poor woman kept mispronouncing organism!
You need to use an apostrophe in "it's." The word is a contraction of "it is."
That's one of my pet peeves. Its, it's and its' along with your and you're and there and their
Anyone who makes a post on the internet and screws one of those up.. Almost automatic that their position takes a hit when I read it.
I don't take points away for an obvious typo, though.. If you were to type out "your'e" when you should have used "you're".. I chalk that up to a simple typo.
I, of course, have problems with spelling certain words.. Desparate is one that I always screw up.. as evidenced here.. I always want to use the A instead of E in it.. Desperate is correct... But just LOOKS so dang wrong.
I find that people will correct the pronunciation of city/town/county names immediately. Even folks that aren't grammar police tend to jump in to assist/correct when you mess up a a city/town/county name. Outsiders usually say it wrong initially, especially odd names or names where there can be several correct ways to say it, but ALL the locals use a specific pronunciation. But after one correction, newcomers and visitors get the name right. Seems you stand out as an outsider if you keep saying the name wrong, and folks are trying to help you out by giving the correct name.
I actually appreciate it when they help. They mean well in this case.
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