Talk:Hypercorrection

Delete...?

I removed the following:

In many dialects of English, word-final and preconsonantal r, in words such as "car" and "hard," is not pronounced. These dialects include those of the British Isles; the traditional dialects of the Coastal Plain of the U.S. South; and those of the coastal cities of the U.S. Northeast and Mid-Atlantic (such as Boston and New York). Speakers of such dialects may append r where there was none, such as pronouncing Africa as Africar, as sometimes heard on the BBC, or the stereotypical Brooklynites mispronunciation of oil as earl.'

I'm prepared to be over-ruled on this but the paragraph seems beyond redemption. I started to edit it but the more I tried the more its point faded away from me. I'm reluctant to correct someone who uses the impressive terms "word-final" and "preconsonantal" but whether a letter is pronounced or not would seem to be a matter of accent rather than dialect. Given that, there seem to be two points in the paragraph: (a) readers on the BBC sometimes add an 'r' where they shouldn't due to confusion related to their pronunciation of 'car' without an 'r' (b) Brooklynites say 'earl' rather than 'oil', presumably for some similar reason

Both of these 'errors' seem to me to be as much in the ear of the person hearing them as in the voice of the person saying them. If a BBC news reader pronounces 'car' and 'Africa' so that they rhyme (as they should under Received Pronunciation) then this does not seem hypercorrective. I confess that I am making an assumption that the Brooklyn example is similarly mis-identified.

Tre1234 00:41, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Agree --Selket ^Talk 00:53, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Disagree - Many British dialects sound the R in words like world, bird, tractor (Scotland and the West of England for example). BBC announcers may add an intrusive R, eg "Africa Ris" for "Africa is" (or laura norder). British actors when impersonating Americans often add an R to the end of words that don't have them (Emma, Africa again).````

Reply: Interestingly, when I started trying to edit the paragraph I was hoping to make your point about other British dialects. In the end, I decided that that wasn't the point. I still say that under RP "the car is" and "Africa is" rhyme. I can understand how a 'r'-pronouncing listener would hear an 'r' in the latter. Whatever it is, I don't think it's a good example of hypercorrection. Also, I haven't checked but presumably somewhere on Wikipedia there is a discussion of how the RP 'r' issues leads to some poor English folk being unable to say 'r' properly in any word but, again, that's different from the topic here. I do, however, give you your point on British actors: why not add some examples (Kenny Everett..?) and put it on the main page. Tre1234 01:53, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

""Reply to Reply"" "Africa is" - some Brits don't just hear an R before the is, here, they put one in! I don't think RP is to blame for some of us not being able to pronounce the letter R properly. Those who can't pwonounce their Rs create an R with their top teeth and bottom lip (it seems to afflict archaeologists, who are always having to say things like "Roman remains" and "Bronze Age rubble"). More examples of hyperforeignism: creton rhyming with Breton for cretonne; kletzmer for klezmer.64.236.227.6 15:26, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I've deleted the following - "Another example would be the pronouncing of the name Pinochet as if it were French(Peenoshay)--actually, it is pronounced Pee no Chett--Latin speakers pronounce such names according to their ruiles of phonetics just as we do. CNN frequently messes this up."

Pinochet is a French-Basque name, not Spanish. The correct pronunciation is unknown and there's quite a lot of debate about it. That's a whole debate in itself, but there are plenty of reasons for pronouncing it "pin-o-shay" or "pin-o-chay" that have nothing to do with hypercorrection.

The problem with the deleted paragraph at the top of this section is that the writer is simply misinformed about certain phonological issues: the various accent-areas mentioned all belong to the so-called "non-rhotic" group, and in scientific (or we might say in mature, adult) discussion there is no basis for ridiculing their "inability" to pronounce the postvocalic r. Further, the "intrusive" r found in "I have no idea -r- about that" is certainly not characteristic of this whole large non-rhotic area; in the U.S. it is identified with parts of New England --- President Kennedy was famous for this kind of accent. This instrusive r is a strategy for linking two vowels together. Most English accents do this in one way or another: there is a slight w between the two words "Go in." and a slight y (palatal) between the first and second syllable of words like create. My Chinese students show their foreign accent by putting a glottal stop between the two vowels, which sounds very un-English. Naturally a speaker with a non-rhotic accent would have more occasion to use this intrusive r, but various accents have adopted other strategies. A slight contraction in the back of the throat (sounds like a uvular or pharyngeal approximant to me) is used by many speakers to link two vowels together. One can especially hear this with people who pronounce "saw" as sah when they say, "I saw it". - The statement about Brooklynese is also quite confused: this accent is part of the traditional lower-class non-rhotic pronunciation of the NYC area, wherein the centralised vowel of words like "turn", instead of just being lengthened, gets followed by a slight palatal glide, thus sounding to other speakers something like oi. So "earl" sounds like "oil", not the opposite. Jakob37 16:54, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Prepositional stranding

Recently, Antaeus Feldspar added this hidden comment to the article's paragraph on the Churchill quote:

The sometimes-argued-to-be-incorrect practice of ending a sentence with a preposition is an example of prepositional stranding; this should probably be mentioned in discussion of this anecdote.

It seemed reasonable to me to change the paragraph so that some of the words (e.g., "elaborate refusal") a link to the "Preposition stranding" article.

But, then, I had a look at that article—and I'm not sure that such a connection is valid.

That article defines prepositional stranding as "the syntactic construction in which a preposition appears without an object", but then gives English examples in which the prepositions definitely have objects (the English pronoun what, for example). Having the object of the preposition in the sentence but not immediately following the preposition (e.g., "What do you live on?" instead of "On what do you live?") is not the same as omitting the object (e.g., "This cake has raisins in").

Because that article misrepresents a different placement of the object as an absence of the object, it is, I think, not the right thing to link to when the issue Churchill was mocking was pedantry about the placement of the object. If that article were actually about the 'rule' about putting the preposition's object (be it a normal noun or a relative pronoun) specifically after the preposition, the link would be more appropriate.

What do others think?

President Lethe 15:07, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Needs work

The current lead in is awful. It's a bit short and using a bullet-point list makes it read more like a dictionary definition than an encyclopedia entry. Moreover, two given meanings are not distinct (much less distinct phenomena) and don't need to be listed seperately (I'll get to this..) There's a major omission in not mentioning hypercorrection in pronunciation, in particular since the bulk of examples refer to it. (That is not a distinct phenomenon either.)

Point 2) is particularily bad: "usage that many informed users of a language consider incorrect but that the speaker or writer uses through misunderstanding of prescriptive rules, often combined with a desire not to seem informal or uneducated." The word "informed" implies a value judgement and the first subclause is redundant anyway since "correct usage", per definition, is what most people consider to be "correct usage". The last subclause should never have been allowed. It's speculation, and given no source can only be assumed to be the non-NPOV opinion of the writer. More importantly though, it's fairly irrelevant: A hypercorrection is a hypercorrection regardless of exact underlying motives.

Not to say the underlying intent isn't important! It makes for a both simpler and less subjective definition of "hypercorrection": That the writer/speaker, through the (over-)application of some percieved rule achives the opposite of what they intended.

This is a much better definition. First because it avoids the subjective nature of what "correct" is, second because it includes the cases where the result is neither clumsy nor incorrect (the only definitions currently given). The term "hypercorrection" is frequently used for such cases, including many of the given examples. A common usage is describing a speaker with an accent or dialect overcompensating when trying to speak more 'neutrally'. The result is then often "correct", in the sense that the pronunciation is within dialectal variations. But it's still a hypercorrection, since they failed to replicate the intended dialect (and possibly any other unmixed dialect).

Another example is "lingerie" pronounced to rhyme with "hay". That pronunciation started as a hypercorrection, but it's now a perfectly acceptable English pronuncation. It's only a hypercorrection if you intended to use a French pronunciation. Another way of saying it is that hypercorrection always results in something incorrect, where 'correct' means 'what was intended', which may or not be the same as correct usage.

Similarily, the first (currently given) definition also applies, although this is less obvious. The intent of the writer is to follow a prescripted style. This means you have to take into account the intent of the prescription, and that intent is not to make the text more difficult. Their aim is usually the exact opposite.

The first and second paragraphs both imply (implicitly then explicitly) that "correctness" is defined by prescription. It is not. Prescriptions are always based to at least some extent on descriptions, while descriptions like dictionaries are often used proscriptively. The relative importance can be debated, but that debate is entirely irrelevant because the definition of the subject doesn't require an absolute definition of "correct". As I already explained, it is a lot simpler to define without attempting one!

The second paragraph is also factually wrong in claming that French has a "supreme authoritive body" which defines correct and incorrect usages. It doesn't. That's nothing but a popular misconception. The French Academy is a French government body, which publishes various prescriptions on language use. Those prescriptions do not carry any more legal weight than any other ones. (Even if they did, the vast majority of French speakers are not citizens of France anyway.) Most governments have one or several official style guides, including the US and UK governments. There is no fundamental difference.

Furthermore, the description that follows is an unnessary and arbitrary categorization, which actually does a good job of exemplifying the contrived attempts at communication that it describes! In an attempt to sound formal and correct it resorts to extreme vagueness: "within certain groups of users of English, some of which are quite large, certain usages are indeed". In clear violation of several of Wikipedia's own prescriptions! There is no reference cited for the categorization that follows, and there's probably every reason to think it's simply an ad-hoc invention of the author.

Worse: What is the author trying to define, anyway?! It's impossible to tell! The preceeding sentence leads one to believe that they're trying to define "correct", but the definition itself uses the word "correct" - so that can hardly be it, or? The alternative would seem to be that it's trying to define "Hypercorrection", but that was already defined! (albeit poorly) This "definition" explains nothing at all. The subjective term "correct" remains undefined, all while it manages to introduce several more ill-defined words like "formal" and "formal rule". An word is being defined in terms of other undefined words, using a seemingly arbitrary categorization which it implies is applicable in an extremely vague set of circumstances.

Shape up folks! A dictionary would've easily given a much clearer definition. (I note, BTW, that they do define the intent differently. American Heritage implies the hypercorrecter is attempting to comply with "standard usage", whereas OED implies they're attempting to comply with a "more prestigious form". While not mutually exclusive, taken together they do illustrate what I'm trying to say: That which exact form they intend isn't very relevant.)

Finally: The article suffers from having too many examples. Two examples is better than one, but a hundred isn't better than ten. It also seems like an inordinate amount of editing and debating is going into the examples. I suggest a representative group are chosen, and if someone really wants the rest, they could be put in a separate list-type article.

I agree that words like "correct" and "prestigious" should be eliminated. Hypercorrection is what happens when someone who uses any one mode of speech tries to adapt to any other, and overshoots the target. Whether the attempted change is up the social scale, or down it, or from dialect to a standardised form, or vice versa, or from one dialect to another, is of secondary importance. The point is that the speaker notices a difference between the two modes of speech, invents a rule to account for it, and generates a result that does not occur among native speakers of the target mode of speech.

In the case of a hyperforeignism, the result may be so widespread as to become "correct". That does not stop it from being a hyperforeignism. The point is that the form originated from a mistaken attempt to mimic the foreign language in question; mistaken, that is, in terms of the foreign language, whether or not in terms of the language spoken. Similarly, when we say that a given form results from "back formation" or "folk etymology", that does not imply that it remains incorrect in the language in which it occurs, or that if it becomes acceptable usage it ceases to be a back formation or folk etymology as the case may be. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 11:03, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Espresso

Too much detail on the espresso/expresso example. I don't think this is a hypercorrection at all: I think people who say this are thinking of the English word "express" (possibly thinking that this kind of coffee is produced quickly). In the same way, many people, in spelling or pronunciation, confuse "Colombia" (the South American country) with "Columbia" (poetic term for the American continent). --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 11:07, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Columbia is obviously unadulterated Latin, Colombia is Spanish. --4.245.248.23 03:33, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Frankly, this mispronunciation is not an example of hypercorrection, but is (as stated) a confusion with "express" and therefore shouldn't be included in this article. Spuddddddd - Cambridge '07

h in Latin

I recall a poem by Catullus talking about his friend who, apparently, is of a low class and tries to hide this by pronouncing h's (which the common people appeared to have dropped) in front of words that simply begin with a vowel, under the impression that there's actually an unpronounced h. Would this be worthy of noting in this article? -- 68.160.184.11 07:11, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Herbs

I am not at all sure that American "erbs" is an attempt to imitate French. It could be just an old-fashioned English thing: in England, "h" was formerly dropped in "humour" and "hotel" (though in the case of "hotel" I suppose French was operative), and it still is (in both countries) in "honour". It used to be a rule that words beginning with "h" and not stressed on the first syllable took "an" as the indefinite article, as in "an historian"; so maybe in those words too the "h" was pronounced weakly or not at all.

If this is right, "erbs" is not a hyperforeignism; rather, "herbs" is a spelling pronunciation. What does everyone else think? Should we keep this example, or delete it on the ground of uncertainty? --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 10:12, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

The aspirated h is an innovation in English for words of French origin (see The American Heritage® Book of English Usage: H). Definitely don't keep as an example of a hyperforeignism; but it might be worth recasting as a non-example, a cautionary tale. So many levels of dialect: standard>substandard>hypercorrect>putatively-hypercorrect>...how low can you go? jnestorius^(talk) 12:44, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I see your points, but there are no other examples I can think of that drop the h in such an obvious and contrived way as in the American 'erbs. I never hear anyone refer to 'erpes simplex, 'ermaphrodites or 'ermit crabs. I think this is because those are not associated with French cookery (at least not in any recipes I would like to sample!) I agree that on the basis of the reasonable doubt it should not be included here, but I still believe it is very likely related to the French pronunciation. Nnanook9 03:27, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

de wrong way to type it

English-language media sometimes decapitalise the first letter of surnames beginning with words like "de", "van" or "von" when clearly unnecessary, for example at the beginning of sentences (e.g. here). I saw a local newspaper in Milton Keynes that had managed to work Osama bin Laden into a headline, which began "bin Laden". Does this count as hypercorrection? Lfh 11:48, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

citation needed

The statements about why people hyper-correct are very elitist and speculative, and most important, not cited. (Bjorn Tipling 04:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC))

Re: Changes. That's a citation that explains what it is, but it says nothing about the claim that's its caused by a 'desire to seem formal or educated'(Bjorn Tipling 14:13, 29 January 2007 (UTC))

The source does say, "it’s usually a matter of trying to please, but without really knowing what is required." I consider that sufficient to back up the statement, "through misunderstanding of prescriptive rules, often combined with a desire to seem formal or educated." I am tenuously reverting; please let me know if you disagree --Selket 15:07, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, my problem with even that claim, which is a little bit more watered down than the actual claim in the paragraph we're disputing, is that there is no proof presented. The tag I used is {{fact}}. That the claim is also made in other publications, whatever they maybe, doesn't mean it is a fact. I want to see evidence, such as a survey, a study, research. As far as I'm concerned the claim being made is nothing other than a widely believed false generalization, a myth, a consequence of ignorance. The burden of proof lies with those making the claim. A much more likely situation is that hypercorrection is the result of benign misunderstanding, a hazy recollection of grammar rules, or simple ignorance. But since we have nothing to go on, other than the printed speculation of others, let's just leave it out, or if you really think it is true, leave the tag on, and maybe someone will know a reference. (Bjorn Tipling 14:15, 30 January 2007 (UTC))

The problem with that line of thinking is that it ignores that hyercorrection is linguistic jargon. Hypercorrection is not making gramatical errors. Hypercorrection is the making of one gramatical error in order to avoid what is percieved as another. That is how hypercorrection is defined; no studies are required. Whether most people who say, "Come to the store with Bob and I," are hypercorrecting could be the subject of the study you describe. If the study discovers they just don't understand the rules it means they are not hypercorrecting and are simply making an error. If the study discovers that they believe the construction, Bob and me is always wrong and said, Bob and I to avoid that mistake, then the study finds that they are hypercorrecting. Either way, definition two from the article is unchanged.

We are defining something. I think The Columbia Guide to Standard American English is an apropriate source for that definition

--Selket 22:14, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh I see, interesting. Thanks for clarifying, I no longer have any objections in that case. (Bjorn Tipling 00:51, 31 January 2007 (UTC))

Criterion/criteria

I regularly hear people mistake the plural and singular forms for one another. Irnoically, the same people often stress the last part of the word in a way that suggests they are making sure you heard them use it correctly. While the simple mistake is in no way hypercorrection, the deliberate overstressing of the 'ion or 'ia (when the worng ending was used anyway) seems to make it so. Any thoughts? Nnanook9 17:25, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

The Aprentice and his apprenti

Concerning the pseudoplural apprenti used by Donald Trump, maybe can we consider the fact that in French the word for Apprentice is Apprenti. I don't know anything about the show but what I'm sure is that English speakers often use French words when talking 'cuisine'; so maybe it's not a plural but just a word from that language ? (Cyrus 02:07, 17 March 2007 (UTC))

Talk amongst yourselves

In such common phrases as "Talk amongst yourselves", the reflexive pronoun is used where the reciprocal pronoun is grammatically appropriate. This claim is not true. The reciprocal pronoun cannot be used in place of the reflexive pronoun, because that would produce "Talk amongst one another", which is nonsense. Talking "among themselves" is not the same as talking "to themselves". I think special mention of "talk amongst yourselves" is needed, but it needs tidying up. Mooncow 18:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Personal Pronoun

I think that this sentence could be changed a little:

[quote]The rule is that the pronoun that would stand in isolation is the one to use: if "I went to the movies", then "You and I went to the movies"; if "They gave it to me", then "They gave it to you and me".[/quote]

It could be clarified with the following change: "The rule is that 'I' is the subjective case of the personal pronoun, while 'me' is the objective case..." or the even simpler "...'I' is a subject, while 'me' is an object..." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.65.134.208 (talk) 06:21, 6 April 2007 (UTC).

Ain't ain't in here...

Whether or not you consider it proper today, the word 'ain't' is historically the correct contraction of the phrase 'am not,' but has fallen into a state of being constantly used but reviled by grammarians. It seems to me that the change in perceived correctness of this word is an example of hypercorrection gone haywire (the correct correction being not using it for 'isn't', and 'aren't' and the extended phrase 'ain't gonna' for 'won't', but correcting 'ain't' out of properiety being the general hypercorrection.

Hypercommification

Wouldn't the annoying, tendency some people, have, of sticking, extra, commas, in all over the place where they, are unnecessary, and, useless, be considered, a form, of hypercorrection?

If so, I recommend the possible words 'hypercommification' or 'shatnerisation' as nominees to, describe, the, phenomenon... Spock.

Non-alphanumeric graphemes

Hypercorrection can involve non-alphanumeric graphemes.

• unnecessary parentheses in mathematical expressions (see Order_of_operations#Proper_use_of_parentheses_and_other_grouping_symbols)
  • Exception: parentheses used to express mathematical functions
• unnecessary hyphens in most instances of noun-noun and adverb-adjective compound modifiers (see Hyphen#Rules_and_customs_of_usage, point 3)
  • Exception: (see Hyphen#Rules_and_customs_of_usage, point 4)
• unnecessary acute accents in Spanish spelling (see Spanish_language#Writing_system, paragraph 3)
• unnecessary accidentals in musical notation (see Modern_musical_symbols#Accidentals_and_key_signatures)

--- Wavelength 18:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Definition

The current definition of Hypercorrection contains the following sentence: 'usage which is correct in another language but is not required in English. Examples include myself, yourself, himself which obtain in Irish and German for instance but not in the more casual English.' I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. Maybe it's because I am not a native speaker, but the passage does not make any sense to me. Unoffensive text or character 09:01, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Party and Colbert

I just want to say that I don't think Partay is really a hyperforeignism, but who knows. I also think the T is silent in Colbert normally, but I could be wrong about that too. Haplolology ^Talk/_{Contributions} 15:11, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Personal pronouns

"You and I" in object position is sometimes described as a hypercorrection, but the form appears in writings as old as Shakespeare, so it is something of a point of dispute whether or not this is hypercorrection. Some linguists (i.e. Chomsky) think that something like "This is between you and I" follows standard rules of internalized native-speaker English grammar.