simple conversational question

[gwnn]

You are talking with someone in a casual setting about something in his area of expertise (or just something that he's supposed to know much more than you). He says something that you are quite sure is just not true (later you look it up and it turns out you were right). Do you say something or do you pretend you believe him/agree?

 

Variations: there is more than 1 person in the conversation, say 5. Or perhaps it is in your area of expertise (he may or may not know this).

[helene_t]

Usually I will say it.

 

Can imagine situations where I would try to avoid embarrassing the person, maybe by saying it in private, or by phrasing it in a way so he doesn't lose face.

[Winstonm]

I would point out the seeming discrepancy and ask for a clarification.

[PassedOut]

Speak up. If the person has misspoken, he or she will have the chance to correct it right there.

 

And, if not, I think most people (not everyone, of course, but who cares?) want to be corrected when wrong. Few of us want to hold demonstrably wrong ideas.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

 

depends.

 

 

Sometimes - I am too tired to correct.

 

But there is usually a way to correct things in a way,

that no one gets hurt, and of course, you may be wrong.

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

[babalu1997]

Hi,

 

depends.

 

 

Sometimes - I am too tired to correct.

depends on whether the area of expertise is bridge or not

[matmat]

rub their nose in it.

[jjbrr]

rub their nose in it.

and do a dance afterwards shouting BOOO YAHHHH WHO'S THE MANNN IN YOUR FACEEEE.

 

That'll teach them for making mistakes.

[hrothgar]

If an expert in a field states X and I believe Y, I will always say something.

 

How else do you expert to learn anything if you don't find out why experts disagree with you?

[kenberg]

Dr. Ken explains the social niceties:

 

I think something like

"I hadn't thought that was so"

would be good.

 

Depending on the other person, and perhaps on the setting, this could lead to him asking for your thoughts, or ignoring you, or calling you an idiot. I have had experience with all three.

 

The key here is to phrase it in terms of your own understanding rather than asserting that he is wrong.

 

Of course it depends on the situation. I'm not all that much of a Garrison Keeler fan even though I am from Minnesota (If you don't know, A Praire Home Companion is hosted by Keeler, who often explains Minnesota to outsiders}. In one of his monologues he explains that the Minnesota way of correction is to begin with "A guy might...". For example, he suggests "When using the blow torch, a guy might move the gas can to the other end of the garage".

[PhantomSac]

This totally depends on so many factors, as most social situations do.

[jdonn]

Yes how can anyone say either always or never to this question? If your answer is either always or never I think you need a lot of work on your social skills!

[JoAnneM]

This reminds me of why I have been happily married for 48 years. A large part of life is knowing when to pick your battles. In a casual setting what purpose is gained in embarrassing someone, unless of course someone is asking directions to the hospital. But we all listen to friends talk about things they have done or that they know that we are also familiar with, and if they make a slip what is the purpose of correcting them? It's distracting to what they are saying and probably not even important to the story or the moment. In fact it usually makes the person doing the correcting just look silly.

 

This is totally different from an academic or professional situation, some people can't tell the difference.

[jjbrr]

This reminds me of why I have been happily married for 48 years. A large part of life is knowing when to pick your battles. In a casual setting what purpose is gained in embarrassing someone, unless of course someone is asking directions to the hospital. But we all listen to friends talk about things they have done or that they know that we are also familiar with, and if they make a slip what is the purpose of correcting them? It's distracting to what they are saying and probably not even important to the story or the moment. In fact it usually makes the person doing the correcting just look silly.

 

This is totally different from an academic or professional situation, some people can't tell the difference.

I might be losing my mind, but I think one of the official quotes of my high school class was "Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens." I feel like you reciprocated the message of that quote nicely in your post. At least, that's the message I got from it.

[gwnn]

Is it necessarily embarrassing if you are corrected? It might be the case when it is a large group of people but when it is just the two of you is it universally true?

[helene_t]

But we all listen to friends talk about things they have done or that they know that we are also familiar with, and if they make a slip what is the purpose of correcting them? It's distracting to what they are saying and probably not even important to the story or the moment. In fact it usually makes the person doing the correcting just look silly.

 

This is totally different from an academic or professional situation, some people can't tell the difference.

Yeah ok, if someone tells a funny story about golden retriever they saw yesterday, and someone else then corrects them and say "actually it was a st bernard".

 

I had something more essential in mind. Like some small talk about lunar eclipses and someone saying that it occurs when Mars is between Earth and Moon.

 

Actually, I would be more likely to correct someone in a social chat than in a professional discussion. In a professional discussion it can feel like a serious thing to be put straight so you gotta be careful. In a social setting, usually I would say that there is no prestige at risk so you might as well tell people the truth.

[gwnn]

simple example (albeit not quite within the restraints of the OP):

 

5 of us sat at a table and this guy was saying what a ridiculous sport curling is. Imagine the "sweepers" haha imagine their training and LOL and if they get thrown off the team they become janitors. I explained to him that there are no "sweepers", every guy sweeps and every guy launches (or what is the word). Was this being embarrassing or just informative?

[helene_t]

Not embarrassing at all.

 

If people are too polite to ever set me straight when I talk nonsense, then it's difficult to trust them. Who knows what they really think about what I am saying? Who knows what they say about me behind my back?

[Codo]

Like others said, there is no right and wrong.

 

I was very used to correct anybody. NO matter whether I was right or wrong (or simply had a different opinion), too many people do not like it when you correct them. There is prestige at risk. Nobody likes to say something stupid. But not many can stand someone who corrects them in public after they did.

 

This is especially true when you are married. :unsure:

 

In your example, I had not been able to stay quite.

[PassedOut]

Not embarrassing at all.

 

If people are too polite to ever set me straight when I talk nonsense, then it's difficult to trust them.

This expresses the way I see the matter too. If I'm wrong, I want to know why, and I owe others the same respect.

 

Challenges in a discussion don't have to be phrased impolitely. Ken's example of the blowtorch and the gas can is a hilarious example of how preposterous an indirect approach can be, and cultural differences surely play a role in how such situations are handled.

 

I tried to think of examples of situations that fit the opening post in which I wouldn't consider it appropriate to speak up and could not think of very many. Perhaps if I know the speaker has recently suffered a nervous breakdown and is in a fragile mental state. Or perhaps the expert's child is listening in and I know that the expert is going through a messy divorce.

 

I remember an incident as an undergraduate where my physics professor was an elderly man (to my eyes at that time), very formal, and very well known in his field. At a lecture early in the semester, one of his assistants -- an intense young man from an eastern European country -- shouted "No!" The assistant then rushed to the stage, erased what the professor had just written, and quickly put up several different equations.

 

The professor never lost his poise but launched into a very interesting discussion with the assistant over subtleties that I for one would most certainly have missed otherwise. I have no way of knowing what happened after the lecture, but the incident was not repeated.

[Al_U_Card]

simple example (albeit not quite within the restraints of the OP):

 

5 of us sat at a table and this guy was saying what a ridiculous sport curling is. Imagine the "sweepers" haha imagine their training and LOL and if they get thrown off the team they become janitors. I explained to him that there are no "sweepers", every guy sweeps and every guy launches (or what is the word). Was this being embarrassing or just informative?

You "deliver" a stone because your technique is referred to as a "delivery". Also referred to as a "throw".(As in: "He is throwing the "big weight" meaning a high speed usually for removing (taking-out) another stone (rock) from play.) Almost as arcane as bridge. :)

 

Back in the 1980's, I pulled a back muscle while sweeping during a tourney. I suggest your friend try the game before dissing it. If he comes off the ice unbruised, he might just find he likes it. :rolleyes:

[jonottawa]

"Shortly after the close of World War I, I learned an invaluable lesson one night in London. I was manager at the time for Sir Ross Smith. During the war, Sir Ross had been the Australian ace out in Palestine; and shortly after peace was declared, he astonished the world by flying halfway around it in thirty days. No such feat had ever been attempted before. It created a tremendous sensation. The Australian government awarded him fifty thousand dollars; the King of England knighted him; and, for a while, he was the most talked about man under the Union Jack. I was attending a banquet one night given in Sir Ross's honor; and during the dinner, the man sitting next to me told a humorous story which hinged on the quotation "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will."

 

The raconteur mentioned that the quotation was from the Bible. He was wrong. I knew that, I knew it positively. There couldn't be the slightest doubt about it. And so, to get a feeling of importance and display my superiority, I appointed myself as an unsolicited and unwelcome committee of one to correct him. He stuck to his guns. What? From Shakespeare? Impossible! Absurd! That quotation was from the Bible. And he knew it.

 

The storyteller was sitting on my right; and Frank Gammond, an old friend of mine, was seated at my left. Mr. Gammond had devoted years to the study of Shakespeare, So the storyteller and I agreed to submit the question to Mr. Gammond. Mr. Gammond listened, kicked me under the table, and then said: "Dale, you are wrong. The gentleman is right. It is from the Bible."

 

On our way home that night, I said to Mr. Gammond: "Frank, you knew that quotation was from Shakespeare,"

 

"Yes, of course," he replied, "Hamlet, Act Five, Scene Two. But we were guests at a festive occasion, my dear Dale. Why prove to a man he is wrong? Is that going to make him like you? Why not let him save his face? He didn't ask for your opinion. He didn't want it. Why argue with him? Always avoid the acute angle." The man who said that taught me a lesson I'll never forget. I not only had made the storyteller uncomfortable, but had put my friend in an embarrassing situation. How much better it would have been had I not become argumentative."

[kfay]

I'm with Jon.

[PassedOut]

I'm with Helene.

[jdonn]

There is a reason, for example, that there is a term called "grammar nazi" instead of "grammar fairy" or "grammar helper". It can be really annoying to be corrected on the spot, as well as potentially embarassing for either one of you or even someone else.

 

Also why does "wrong" have to be "nonsense"? It could be simply misspeaking. Or maybe it was a bad joke.

 

Or you could be "sure" you are correct when really both are correct. I remember on the forum first hearing "anti-clockwise". I "knew" that "counter-clockwise" was correct because, well, I just know it is. But it turns out it's only correct in my country. So sometimes the corrector is not even correct.

 

Seriously how can some of the smartest people here look at life so black and white that they would think it must be right to always or never do such a thing? I think they should realize that just because they wouldn't mind it being done to themselves doesn't mean at all that others wouldn't mind it being done to them.