From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Solecism

Phrase that transgresses the rules of grammar

Summary

Phrase that transgresses the rules of grammar

A solecism is a phrase that transgresses the rules of grammar. The term is often used in the context of linguistic prescription; it also occurs descriptively in the context of a lack of idiomaticness.

Etymology

The word originally was used by the Greeks for what they perceived as grammatical mistakes in their language. Ancient Athenians considered the dialect of the inhabitants of Soli, Cilicia to be a corrupted form of their pure Attic dialect and labelled the errors in the form as "solecisms" (Greek: σολοικισμοί, soloikismoí; sing.: σολοικισμός, soloikismós). Therefore, when referring to similar grammatical mistakes heard in the speech of Athenians, they described them as "solecisms" and that term has been adopted as a label for grammatical mistakes in any language; in Greek there is often a distinction in the relevant terms in that a mistake in semantics (i.e., a use of words with other-than-appropriate meaning or a neologism constructed through application of generative rules by an outsider) is called a barbarism (βαρβαρισμός barbarismos), whereas solecism refers to mistakes in syntax, in the construction of sentences.

Examples

Name	Type of grammatical breach	Example
Catachresis	Wrong grammatical case	"This is just between you and I" for "This is just between you and me" (hypercorrection to avoid the correct "you and me" form in the predicate of copulative sentences, even though "me" is the standard pronoun for the object of a preposition or the object of a verb).
Catachresis	Double negative	"She can't hardly sleep" for "She can hardly sleep" (a double negative, as both "can't" and "hardly" have a negative meaning)

References

Bryan A Garner. (2001). "A dictionary of modern legal usage". Oxford University Press.
Filion, Charles A.. (January 2015). "Differences Between English Poetics and Sanskrit Poetics".
. (2023-08-29). ["solecism (n.)"](https://www.etymonline.com/word/solecism).
{{LSJ. soloikismo/s. σολοικισμός. ref.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

ancient-greek english-grammar grammar linguistic-error sociolinguistics

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Solecism — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report