Linguistic One-Upmanship

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, how are you? This is Greg Allen, calling from Charlottesville, Virginia. How are you doing?

Hi, Greg. Welcome to the program.

Well, thank you.

How can we help you?

Well, I am curious, I suppose, about what might be called linguistic one-upmanship and so much of the technical correctness.

I guess the most frustrating common example that I run into is saying I or me, choosing one or the other, and being corrected while you’re in conversation.

And I guess my whole question is not about what’s the correct use, because I know the way to figure that out. Trust me, my mother was a teacher, so I’ve learned how to correctly figure it out.

But it’s more about, you know, the frustration is that it just, you knew what I meant. If you said, you know, oh, who’s going to the party? And I say, Alice and me, you know, or Alice and I, and I say it wrong. Why do you need to correct me? You know what I’m saying.

And so that’s really, you know, the gist of my question is, what is this with this, you know, technical correctness thing? I thought language was about communication.

Yeah, yeah. It’s so annoying, isn’t it? It just stops the whole conversation down.

Exactly. It really does. It takes it off. It gives it an unpleasant feel, and it does. It just shuts it down.

So what environments are you hearing this?

Well, generally, just honestly, you know, I always joke my mother about it because, you know, she was a teacher. She’s retired now, but she still just has that habit of correcting, not just me, but, you know, lots of people I hear do it. And so I’m always like, you know, lighten up.

But I actually, I’m a singer-songwriter, and I’ve got a friend who is, you know, he’s my peer. He’s the last guy on earth that I would expect to ever do that. And he consistently, when we’re talking, you know, if I use it wrong, he’ll go, you know, it’s Alice and I. Just give me that dead hand look. Now, he’s got a great sense of humor, but I’m like, you know, Tom, shut up.

Yeah, shut your pie hole, dude. Play a song.

Exactly, yeah. Exactly.

Well, there’s a lot of ways to address this. When I give public speeches around the country about languages, sometimes I’m asked to speak about this topic or it comes up in the Q&A. And I can do two hours on this particular question alone. How much time do you have? I want to keep this brief.

But the first thing I should say is the people who really need to hear this answer are never going to ask your question. Like your friend, Alan, is not going to actually call this show and say, should I be correcting people? They’re not likely to do it.

And there are a lot of reasons for that. And I think one of them is, maybe the main one is, they haven’t stopped to think about what the stakes are. The stakes are really low in these situations that you’re talking about, right? There’s nothing on the line.

I have these rules that I generally say in which it’s okay to correct other people. Your mother gets a pass. It’s okay. She can do whatever she wants. No matter how old you are, your parents and grandparents or your guardians, they’re allowed to correct your grammar. Even if they’re 90 and you’re 60, that’s just the way it is. Your parents can always suck it up. Because raising children doesn’t ever stop. So they’re allowed.

Your friend is only allowed to correct you if you have asked him to or if you’re paying him to. And otherwise, he should zip it. There you go. I mean, that’s generally the rule.

Now, there are some other exceptions. And I always get emails going, well, what about X? Like one of my favorite examples is if you’re reading a cookbook and the recipe is wrong and it’s going to turn the world’s best cookies into the world’s worst hockey pucks, then you should probably send a note to the publisher to correct that recipe. There are things like that.

If you just happen to see a legal document and you have legal expertise and even though it’s none of your business, you realize they’re about to make a giant mistake, maybe you should insert yourself into the process or, you know, or ask for an hourly fee. I don’t know.

Yeah, you know, Greg, I’ve kind of had to train myself because like you, I’m a teacher’s kid and I was instantly corrected again and again and again. And it’s almost a reflex now, you know, when somebody says something wrong. I literally have to bite my tongue.

To not correct them, you mean?

Yeah. And I do that. I try to refrain because of exactly what Grant said. What are the stakes? Does it really do anybody any good if I just blurt that out and stop down the conversation? When I’m just an onlooker, when people don’t know that I’m, you know, radio language guy or former dictionary editor, that sort of thing. And I’m listening to these kinds of circumstances where person A is correcting person B. I don’t think I’ve yet ever found the stakes to be high enough to warrant the correction. I just I just don’t. I just don’t find it.

And we’re probably talking about hundreds, if not thousands of times that I’ve heard this kind of correction. But there are a lot of reasons that people correct other people. And I think and I don’t want to get too far into this because, again, it’s a long conversation. But what you might look for in your friend or people who correct you is try to get to the bottom of their reasons.

Exactly. And sometimes they may feel inferior to you and they’re trying to bring themselves themselves back up to your level. I think it’s true for for probably most of them. I think some of us, you know, it’s almost like like unconsciously reaching to get lint off of somebody’s shoulder. You know, it’s just a reflex.

Yeah. But again, most…

But I’m trying to fight that.

Yeah, yeah. Most circumstances, boy, it’s hard to justify, you know?

Yeah, I agree.

How do you handle it when Alan gives you a correction? You just blow it off?

I just blow it off. I mean, sometimes I just, you know, I’m like, whatever, and just try to keep going. This was a thoughtful question. I really appreciate it. This is something that comes up again and again, and I think you’ve offered a couple of really great examples of how this can go wrong.

But, you know, you just got to take it when your mother dishes it out, all right?

Okay, I will keep that in mind. I will even let her know. I will let her know that you are on her side.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, thank you. Enjoy the day. Take care.

Thanks a lot, Greg.

All right, bye-bye.

We’d love to hear your examples about miscorrections and how correcting you has gone wrong or your examples of how you deal with being corrected by others when it’s just not right for the moment. 877-929-9673. Email us, words@waywordradio.org, and our Twitter handle is Wayword, W-A-Y-W-O-R-D.