The first rule in good manners is to never publicly correct another person’s bad manners/etiquette. The core of good etiquette is respect for others. Publicly correcting people is not only disrespectful and humiliating to that person, it advertises the correcting person as an arrogant boorish ass.
Robert Bubba Miller – 2014
The etiquette for correcting another person’s grammar is that you don’t, not unless you have blanket permission and a compelling reason to do so. Even then, never interrupt a train of thought or a serious conversation. The English language has been around for 600 years in its present form, give or take a century, depending on which linguistic historian you ask, and is the dominant language worldwide for business, science, and politics. It is, in short, sturdier than the average friendship and in need of less coddling.
Some people correct others’ grammar more out of unthinking habit than out of a deep protective instinct toward the mother tongue. It’s a verbal tic with them, as swearing or automatically making wisecracks is for other people. As with these other peccadilloes, ignore it if it doesn’t bother you, and if it does, gently register an objection.
Miss Manner, The Boston Globe, August 5, 2007 – Miss Conduct is Robin Abrahams, a Cambridge-based writer with a PhD in psychology
It is considered a worse breech of etiquette to point out someone else’s mistake than the mistake itself, no matter what is is!
Amanda Gamble – 1/28/2006
bubbamiller 