Woman Says Stranger 'Ruined Her Daughter's Life' for Telling Her She Was Pronouncing Her Own Name Wrong
In an anonymous post shared to Reddit, a woman says a mom got mad at her when she shared the correct way to pronounce an Irish name
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Two women arguing in a stock photoOn Reddit, a woman in the U.K. recounts how she corrected an American mom's pronunciation of her daughter's Irish name
The poster shares that when she corrected the mom, the conversation took a turn
Commenters, however, were on the side of the U.K. woman
A woman says a mom told her she "ruined" her daughter's life after telling her the correct way to pronounce her own name.
In an anonymous post shared to Reddit, the woman writes that she lives in the U.K., and recently started up a conversation with an American mother traveling with her child.
"The mother mentioned that her daughter's name was 'Grain' so I assumed for a while that she was another mother who wanted something 'special' to call her child. I remarked that it was a unique name and that I'd never met anyone called Grain before," the woman writes.
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That's when the child said she was named after her great-grandmother and that the name is an Irish one.
"At this point, the alarm bells are ringing in my head because I've realized that the kid is called Gráinne (generally pronounced as Gro-nyuh, or thereabouts.)," she writes. "I tried to be very tactful, and I was like, 'Irish has such an interesting alphabet. How is her name spelled? Irish names can be tricky.' "
She continues: "The kid is called Gráinne. Not Grain."
In an attempt to be tactful, the woman replied to the mom, "an old-school name and a more modern pronunciation. I think that's a great way to pick names."
When the child's mom asked what she meant, the woman responded, "Well in Ireland, they typically pronounce it like 'Gro-nyuh.' "
"Her face went red and [she] said that I shouldn't have said that the pronunciation was wrong in front of the kid because now she's going to grow up knowing that her name is wrong and feel bad about it," the poster continued. "I apologized for causing offense and restated that it's a lovely name in both ways and a fantastic nod to her heritage."
Still, the American mom was angry.
"She told me that I 'ruined her daughter's self-esteem' and that her 'life [was] ruined' by me saying that 'her existence is wrong,' " the post continues. "I didn't say that, by the way. I said that her name was pronounced atypically ... The conversation was maybe five minutes long, but I managed to ruin this kid's life. Hindsight says I should have kept my mouth shut and waited for somebody else in this city to say something."
Reddit commenters largely disagreed.
"It's better for the kid to learn the correct pronunciation now rather than face it later with potential bullying," wrote one commenter. "The mom needs to take some responsibility here!"
Another commenter added that "Grain" is "absolutely not a modern pronunciation" of the Irish name Gráinne, adding: "as an Irishman, it infuriates me when Americans who claim to be Irish (it's usually those with 3% Irish in them), go and butcher Irish names and language. Pronouncing Gráinne as Grain is the equivalent of calling the child Sarah but spelling it as Stella."
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