Is It Always Okay to Correct Someone’s Pronunciation?
If you pronounced the words above like duh- trai -tus , ti -nuh-tuhs and chaach -kee , well done. You did it. If not, then you are not alone. A recent study by Preply found that 44% of people mispronounced or used a phrase for over a year before they found out. The same study found that eight out of 10 “get annoyed when they hear a word or phrase that is misused.” What you? Because it’s me.
However, can I correct the mispronunciation? If this is not my husband or children, no. I choose life. And in general, be a polite, non-pedantic person.
But in the Preply survey, 66% of respondents said that it is possible to correct someone (even if they were not asked about it), and 87% corrected someone’s pronunciation, with one in five correcting a stranger . There was some generational discrepancy: 69% of millennials felt fixing someone was acceptable, while only 56% of baby boomers felt the same way. (This begs the question: What about Gen X? But we digress.)
Why you shouldn’t correct someone’s English
Don’t you like it when you do something to the best of your ability, and someone – whom you may not even know – invisibly tells you the “right” way to do it? It’s even better when it happens in front of other people or during an argument. This brings me to the first reason not to correct someone else’s pronunciation: it’s rude.
There are many reasons why someone might pronounce a word differently than the dictionary says. There are regional and educational differences, dialectal variations and the fact that they are not native speakers. We understand the urge to fix this so they don’t make the same mistake again, but before you do, consider: how will you feel if you embarrass this person or if it hurts your relationship? Do you really want to correct them in order to be useful or to demonstrate your linguistic superiority? (Be honest.)
Can someone’s English ever be corrected?
Of course, there are exceptions. If you are a teacher, it is in your competence to correct the mistakes of the students; you wouldn’t be doing your job if you weren’t doing it. Likewise, parents are expected to correct their children’s mispronunciation so that their brainchild can go out into the world without dropping the F bomb when they wanted to say fork. (We must add a nostalgic caveat here: toddlers will only say things like “blankely” for the blanket and “Huncheys of Oats” for so long, not “Honey of Oats.” For maximum appeal, correct them sparingly if Also remember about over-correcting your children to the point of undermining their confidence.
In the workplace, there are times when pronunciation needs to be corrected; for example, when proprietary software is mispronounced, or if your coworker keeps repeating “the goat will slip away” in client presentations. When a wrong attitude reflects badly on the group as a whole (or you are that person’s manager), correct it privately and without leniency.
Sometimes people want to learn and actually ask for their opinions. In that case, you can certainly provide it. But if you don’t hear: “How do you say it again?” think twice before you say, “Actually, this is …”
And finally, if you haven’t corrected a member of your original, adopted, or chosen family, are you really family? When you live with people, there is a hidden level of familiarity and honesty that takes precedence over politeness. I admit that sometimes I correct my husband simply because he is so well versed in science and history that I have to hold back my stifling grip on language being my business . But also? I cannot allow him to say “Ke-osk” instead of “Key-osk”. We have a last name to protect.