In an earlier episode, we talked about whether it’s condescending to say you’re “proud of someone,” and the majority of you who responded agreed that it’s best to say something that doesn’t make it about you. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Listener Responses for Being Proud”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. Every once in a while, we have a call that just opens the floodgates, and we get all kinds of emails in response to it, all kinds of…
What did I do now? What was it?
No, no, no. You can rest assured that it wasn’t you this time, Grant.
It was a call that we had from a guy who was a little bit uncomfortable with using the word proud.
Do you remember that?
I do remember that he had a problem with saying that he was proud of somebody else for their achievements.
Right.
As if it was condescending or he was stealing their thunder.
Yeah, he wasn’t quite sure if that fit.
Right.
Should he be saying that about other people or did it like divert the power dynamic to him and away from them?
And boy, we heard from all kinds of listeners about this.
Celia Morris wrote to say, the man who called in about having difficulty saying, I’m proud of you, is my new hero.
I know exactly what he means.
I can’t bring myself to say I’m proud of you either.
It seems to make the situation about me rather than you.
And Julianne Sands wrote, I was taught that saying I’m proud of you was almost impolite.
It insinuates that I am judge and jury.
The correct delivery would be you should be very proud of yourself.
And Pat Colston from Danbury, Connecticut, wrote to say that maybe we should say something like, I’m so thrilled that you and your work are recognized or you have every right to feel proud of what you’ve accomplished.
Right. She turns the pride back onto the person who did the thing.
Yeah.
Very good.
And so now I’m thinking, I mean, it always felt a little strange to me, but so many people responded to that with those kinds of—
And did they all tend to go in that direction?
They all kind of concurred that saying that you were proud of somebody, there was something wrong with that?
Not everybody, but I would say the majority of people did.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Well, we’ll still take your calls and your emails about whether or not you can actually say you’re proud of someone without sounding condescending.
Give us a call, 877-929-9673.
And, you know, we talk about all things related to language here.
Call us or email with those to words@waywordradio.org.
When my children were growing up and they distinguished themselves in school or sports, I always said something along the lines of “I am so happy for you! You must be very proud of yourself!” I said this for the same reason your caller expressed, that is, I didn’t feel I should be proud because it was not MY accomplishment. They should feel proud. Of course, other parents were telling their kids they were proud of them. I learned later, when my kids were grown, that they would have like to hear “I’m proud of you” from me – I guess the subtle distinction was lost on the youngsters – my bad (as they say, and I don’t, though I just did).