Well, What Would YOU Do?

Correct Verbal Etiquette

Occasionally I wind up in a conversation with someone who pronounces a word wrong, or at least differently from me. What is the proper etiquette for continuing the conversation? It is very disruptive to correct the person, requiring an extended explanation such as the one in the next paragraph. If the correction doesn't ignite an argument, it will at least embarrass the other party. Either way the conversation usually terminates prematurely. Should I intentionally mispronounce the word to subjugate myself to the error? Am I being honest when I do that? Ultimately, am I hurting my professional image? Or should I carry on the conversation with the correct pronunciation in each of my references as though we were speaking the same language? Certainly that behavior becomes quite noticeable and can negatively affect the conversation as well.

Often I encounter this problem in reference to the file extension GIF. Many geek-types want to pronounce it with the j-sound at the beginning. First, that's a peanut butter brand spelled Jif. Second, I encountered the JIFF file extension many years ago when I used a little image-viewing program called JPEGView. That freeware program produced an alternate image file with the JIFF extension. Though I know few people are even aware of that program and its extension, using that pronunciation creates confusion for me in conversation. Third, these same geek-types don't have any difficulty at all correctly pronouncing the GI letter combination with other words. To give would render a very different message than to jive. A gift is not a jift. Unless you are Riverdance a gig does not include a jig. And, though there is considerable discussion about bits versus bytes, there is no debate on how the prefix giga is pronounced. And, yes I acknowledge that there are absolutely legitimate soft pronunciations of the combination, but this is not one of them.

This challenge to verbal etiquette happened again recently. Meeting with a prospective customer, he pronounced a word incorrectly. Hoping to maintain my professional integrity without making an issue of the error, I opted to pronounce it correctly without correcting him. I found the experience to be quite awkward. Though nothing was ever said about it, and the meeting went well enough to last for a couple hours, I can’t help wonder how much effect the conversation will have on our business relationship in the future. If you have any light to shed on the subject, please feel free to comment.