Re: Correcting to be polite

Karen Lofstrom <lofstrom@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Nah, it's the real-life stuff that puzzles me. If you're chatting
> with someone at a party and he tells you that Hawaii became a
> state in 1969, do you let it pass, or do you chirp helpfully,
> "Um, I think you mean 1959"?

That phrasing might sound condescending. How about just
in(ter)jecting '1959'?

The speaker then has the option to ignore you or say 'Oh, right.',
or start arguing it (the least desirable option).

The 'Um' and the 'I think you mean' (as well as the 'excuse me' and
the 'sorry') sounds quite different than you might intend it. I
would guess that it's intended as lessening the correction, take the
offense out, but it does the opposite.

If you know stuff, and the subject is a big enough issue that you
object (your other post made clear that it does bother you 'big'),
why pretend it's just some small 'If you really really don't mind
I'd like to object...' instead of an honest and simple correction?

The pretense, when it's not what's actually on your mind, could be
perceived as dishonest, perhaps not even consciously.

Also, the 'I think you mean' is a way of putting words into
another's mind, where you really don't have access, so you end up
looking condescending; implying 'you're stupid (because your mind is
so feeble, you need someone else to tell you what you want to say)'.
It jarrs, and is offensive.

If you want to make it look smaller than you mean it, you could turn
it into a question; 'Do you mean 1959?' That leaves the speaker his
mind to decide for himself whether he was just mistaken. (Like a
typo in speech, they do happen.)

(Don't know whether that makes clear what I mean.)

More general, people who get offended at straight-forward correction
(that is actually correct) aren't really worth wasting time worrying
about, IMO.

--
Tina
No internet access.
### XP v3.40 RC3 ###

.

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