BEING CORRECTED

 

I used to have a friend who is practically Mrs. Malaprop. (Or Norm Crosby to you older, or less literate, crowd.) She mispronounced so many words that she practically needed her own dictionary! When she first said the word “valet” to me, she pronounced it “va-lay,” rhyming with “fillet.” I thought she wanted to find food rather than someone to park her car! Seriously! And she got even basic sayings so wrong, they meant nothing. (Example: She once said she was “cool, calm, and collective,” rather than the correct “collected.” What would the other even mean???)

I have another pal who says funny things, by accident, but they sort-of make sense. To her. She told a cousin from Germany that “we have an expression in this country: ‘eating someone out of house and hold.’ ” I was shocked, of course, and told her it was “…and home.” I asked her what she even thought that her version meant. She answered, “Like a household!” Can’t argue with that. We still laugh over it.

Guess which one welcomes being corrected? The latter, of course. The former would practically start crying! I just don’t get that attitude at all. I always want to be corrected, in the few instances that I’m actually wrong, that is! I don’t even care if it’s in public, even though I do my correcting in private, usually.

I have a few friends who feel like I do. We want to be corrected as quickly as possible, so that we can get things right going forward.

[Sidebar: I just saw a re-run of an Ellen show with Leonardo DiCaprio (which is the only reason I was watching it to begin with.) Ellen mispronounced “quaaludes” so badly that it was embarrassing. And fabulous Leo corrected her! On-air! As if I didn’t love him enough already. And, after she made some dumb joke about her not saying it right because she’s from New Orleans, she changed the pronunciation to the correct one he had just told her. Everyone should take it like that!]

And it’s not just in the pronunciation arena that people get things wrong. I have a friend I love; I wouldn’t have made it through the time since I lost my mother without her. Really. She’s generous and caring, and will go out of her way for her pals. But she gets so many things wrong. And when I gently correct her, (in private, and after hearing each particular mis-speak many times,) she goes berserk. She yells and insists that I’m wrong.

When I recently asked her to please not text while driving with me in the car, she told me that I’m “obsessive-compulsive” because I won’t text or use a hand-held phone while I’m driving! And because I wear seat-belts! I asked how obeying the law, and making sure to not endanger anyone, is obsessive-compulsive. She just kept screaming that I am!

And she always pronounces “San Vicente,” a popular street here in LA, with an “n” after the “vi,” (which many people who don’t know better, or can’t read, do.) Since she’s from out-of-town, I corrected her right away. But she continues to pronounce it wrong, even this one is such an easy fix.

She also insists on calling seizures “epileptic fits,” which is so rude that I couldn’t believe it was coming from her! To spare future embarrassment to her and the people she knows who have seizures, I told her right away to please stop calling them “fits,” and that that terminology is out of the dark ages, when people didn’t know better. It’s also downright offensive. But she told me that I’m wrong, and she has continued to say it! I know at least two people who are offended by that, and I asked her to at least not use it in their presence, but she insists she’s correct!

So, back to the premise of this article—I just don’t get people wanting to continue to be wrong. Why is that? Who wants to be wrong? Certainly not I! Someone once told me that I was pronouncing the word “amphitheater” wrong; he said to say it without the first “h,” as “ampi.” So I did. For years! One very literate pal finally told me that she was surprised I was wrong about a basic pronunciation, so I looked it up, (which I should have done to begin with,) and changed back to my original (and correct) pronunciation that very second! And I’m always so grateful that the smart friend corrected me.

My sister, who’s an English teacher, used to sometimes find mistakes in this very e-zine! (Perish the thought!) She asked if I minded that she told me about them. I always answered,”Of course not!!!” I’m horrified when I discover one myself, and want to be told immediately if someone finds an error. I even invite everyone I write about to correct me. (That’s one of the purposes of the Comments section, as a matter of fact.)

To me, correcting someone shows concern for them; it’s a kind act, not a punitive one.

So, please everyone, if you’re corrected, just be grateful that you’ll stop sounding like an idiot! And if you’re not sure about it, just look it up. It’s so easy to do. And if you’re the corrector, do it gently and with kindness or humor, and in private.

And let’s all stop being so wrong!