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Hypercorrection

Encyclopedia : H : HY : HYP : Hypercorrection

Hypercorrection is two linguistic phenomena:

  1. elaborate, prescriptively based correction of common usage, often introduced in an attempt to avoid vulgarity or informality, that results in wording commonly considered clumsier than the usual, colloquial usage.
  2. 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.
Contents

In English

Unlike some other languages, such as French, English has no single supreme authoritative body that governs whether any given usage will fall into the category correct or incorrect. Nonetheless, within certain groups of users of English, some of which are quite large, certain usages are indeed considered either (1) unduly elaborate adherence to formal rules instead of rules of popular, widespread, or common usage or (2) mis- or ill-informed changing of correct, but seemingly informal, usage into wording that is incorrect but seemingly formal.

Preposition at the end of a clause

An anecdote often attributed to Winston Churchill has Churchill replying to a hypercorrective memo with the phrase "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put" or a similar construction.[link] This is an example of hypercorrection used as parody: Churchill went beyond creating a grammatically correct sentence to mock the elaborate refusal to end a clause in a preposition (or insistence on placing the preposition before the relative pronoun); he treated the adverbial particles up and with as prepositions. They are actually part of the phrasal verb put up with, and their placement before put is extremely unusual.

Proscription against such constructions as "Where is the party at?" is not necessarily related to the proscription against ending a clause in a preposition. The adverb where in such questions means "at what place", making the final at redundant.

Personal pronouns

Jack Lynch, assistant professor of English at Rutgers University describes another example of hypercorrection:

We're taught as children—and beginning language learners are told—"You don't say 'Me and you went to the movies': it should be 'you and I'." And a lot of people, therefore, internalize the rule that "you and I" is somehow more proper, and they end up using it in places where they shouldn't—such as "He gave it to you and I", when it should be "He gave it to you and me".[link]
Another form of pronoun hypercorrection seems to originate in the speaker's or writer's desire to appear educated or refined rather than in understanding of the usual usage of pronouns. It is the use of reflexive pronouns in places properly occupied by other pronouns. The reflexive pronouns in English are myself, yourself, thyself, himself, herself, itself, oneself, ourselves, yourselves, and themselves. Reflexive pronouns are properly used when the direct or indirect object of the verb is the same noun as the subject: for example, in "She dresses herself", the same person is designated by she in the subject and by herself in the object. Hypercorrection includes (1) all non-appositive uses of the reflexive pronoun as subject and (2) all non-appositive uses of the reflexive pronoun as object when the object is not the same person or thing as the subject. For example, (Appositive use of reflexive pronouns is not hypercorrection: e.g., "I, myself, went shopping", "Sam gave you, yourself, a gift", "Joe heard me, myself, in the kitchen", and "The students, themselves, are intelligent".)

In such common phrases as "Talk amongst yourselves", the reflexive pronoun is used where the reciprocal pronoun is grammatically appropriate. If Sam, Pat, and Joe really talk "among themselves", they are talking to themselves—Sam to Sam, Pat to Pat, Joe to Joe. The reciprocal pronoun accurately describes this reciprocral situation: "Sam, Pat, and Joe are talking with one another" (or each other) leaves no doubt that Sam is talking with Pat and Joe, Pat is talking with Sam and Joe, and Joe is talking with Sam and Pat.

Phonemes

Hypercorrection also occurs when a colloquial dialect differs in pronunciation from the standard. For example, because standard American English is a rhotic dialect (requiring the pronunciation of syllable-final -r), speakers of regional non-rhotic dialects often overcompensate for the loss of syllable-final -r by pronouncing some words ending in vowels as if there were an -r at the end: for example, pronouncing idea as "idear" ([ɑɪdˈiɜr]).

Similarly, speakers who usually pronounce both t and d as [ɾ] may, in an attempt to formalize, pronounce lady as laty ([ˈleɪtɪ]).

Overcompensation can occur with an among speakers trying to ensure pronunciation of d in and, and with the participial -en suffix among speakers hoping to ensure pronunciation of g in the -ing suffix.

Another example of phonetic hypercorrection occurs when speakers from the North of England move south, and pronounce sugar ([ˈʃʊgə(r)]) as if it were spelled "shugger" ([ˈʃʌgə(r)]), to assonate with the Received Pronunciation form of butter ([ˈbʌtə(r)]).

In an effort to avoid the perceived vulgarism of "dropping Hs", some speakers pronounce the name of the letter H ([eɪtʃ]) as "haitch" ([heɪtʃ]).

Plurals

Another area of hypercorrection involves Greek- and Latin-looking words like octopus. The spurious plural octopi likens the octopus to Latin nouns of the Second Declension that form plurals in -i. (Were there actually a classical plural of octopus, it would be octopodes.) Words such as platypus, rhinoceros, apparatus, status, hiatus, census, opus, rebus, omnibus, ignoramus (which, in Latin, is a form of a verb), and mandamus (ditto) are sometimes inflected in the same way, although some much more commonly than others; none of these examples' sources would be inflected in that way in Latin or Greek. Virus sometimes gets the pseudoclassical plural form virii, which presumes Latin *virius. An even less sensible plural is penii (for singular penis; the true Latin plural is penes), which is not uncommon in Internet speak. Occasionally, one sees similar plurals for non-classical words, such as caucus and walrus, or invented words, such as conundrum.

All of these words take the regular English inflection in -s or -es, but a few of the hypercorrected forms have passed into such common usage as to be considered acceptable by some, despite their origins.

Yet more hypercorrection deals with the pronunciation of the -es plural forms of certain English nouns. Although the most common way of pluralizing a noun in English is to add -s or -es to the end of the singular form, there are many exceptions. One such exception involves some words whose singular forms end in -is and the plurals of which are formed simply by the replacement of -is with -es: e.g., crisis and crises, neurosis and neuroses, prosthesis and prostheses, testis and testes, diagnosis and diagnoses. The standard pronunciation of such plurals has the final syllable equivalent to the sound of the English word ease [iːz]. Yet, some speakers use the same ease [iːz] pronunciation for the -es endings of nouns whose plurals are formed in the ordinary way, by the addition of -es: e.g., processes (plural of process) and biases (plural of bias). The correct pronunciations of words such as processes and biases have the final syllable equivalent to that of houses and witches: [əz].

Room for confusion exists in some homographic plurals, where the final "-es" pronunciation depends on the word's meaning. For example, axes is pronounced [æksiːz] as the plural of axis, but [æksəz] as the plural of axe. The pronunciation of bases similarly depends on whether its singular is basis or base. Hypercorrective replacement of [əz] with [iːz] in plurals may result partly from confusion over these homographs.

Hyperforeignism

When pronunciation and spelling of foreign loan words are erroneously based on rules that apply to other foreign words but not to those in question, the phenomenon is hyperforeignism. The following are examples.

One might conclude that, as the -s is silent in French Mardi Gras, coup de grâce is pronounced [ku deɪ grɑ]; the French pronunciation is [ku də gʀas]. Similarly some speakers omit the last consonant in Vichyssoise [z], in the chess term en prise, and in prix fixe.

Forte, meaning a person's strong point, is now usually pronounced with two syllables, under the influence either of the Italian musical term forte or of the many French loan words ending in é. This meaning was originally a metaphor drawn from fencing: the forte of the blade is the thick part, and the foible is the thin part. In fencing context, it is still pronounced "fort". The term is derived from French, where the equivalent word has both the strength and the fencing meanings, and is spelled fort, with a silent t.

Many native speakers of English pronounce the word lingerie as [lɑnʒɜɹeɪ], stressing the first or the last syllable, excessively depressing the first vowel to sound more like a "typical" French nasal vowel, and rhyming the final syllable with English ray, by analogy with the many French loanwords ending in -é(e), -er, -et, and -ez. A closer English approximation of the native French [lɛ̃ʒəʀi] would be [lænʒəɹi].

The English [eɪ] pronunciation of the French -ez has even been misapplied to Ruy López, the name of a Spanish priest used eponymously in chess, more properly approximated ['rui ˈlɔpɛθ].

Some English-speakers pronounce machismo as [məˈkɪzmoʊ] on the analogy of other learned or foreign-derived words in which ch is rendered [k] in English: for example, anarchism, architect, masochism, maccheroni (macaroni). The Spanish ch in machismo is properly pronounced in the same way as ch in English chair [tʃ].

The word is pronounced [ˈmedzo] in Italian, but, in musical context (mezzo soprano, mezzo forte), is often rendered [ˈmetso(ʊ)] or [ˈmetsəu] by speakers from other linguistic backgrounds.

Some English-speakers pronounce Beijing with a French j [ʒ], even though the Mandarin Chinese sound represented by the j in Pinyin is closer to the English j [dʒ]. Similarly, the j in the name of the Taj Mahal is often rendered [ʒ], though a closer approximation to the Hindi sound is [dʒ]. (J in most other Roman-alphabet spellings of words associated with languages of India is best approximated [dʒ].)

Another example is the pronunciation of Punjab as [pundʒaːb]; in the Anglo-Indian spelling convention, Hindi's neutral vowel is represented by the letter u with a sound similar to that of the u in English cup [ʌ].

Hypercorrection arises in the use of diacritics in words from foreign languages. For example, habañero peppers is a misapplied analogy with jalapeño; the standard Spanish spelling has no tilde—habanero. The Italian word grande is sometimes spelled grandé by English-speakers—in some cafés, for example. But it is possible that, in some such instances, the acute accent is used specifically to induce readers to pronounce the word at least semi-correctly, as [ˈgɹɑndeɪ] instead of [gɹænd] or [gɹɛ̃nd].

Unintentional misuse of diacritics should not, however, be confused with intentional misuse, or use without concern for traditional function, as in the heavy-metal umlaut. The silent 't' in "report" in the title of the parody pundit show The Colbert Report is another example of a hyperforeignism used for comedic effect.

In other languages

West South Slavic languages

The syllables je and ije appear in Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin speech where Serbian has only variation in quality (length of the vowel) of e. Not every Serbian e becomes je or ije like in the other West Balkan countries. Serbian speakers may hypercorrect their dialect by either undersupplying or oversupplying the jes and the ijes.

Chinese languages

Modern Cantonese is currently undergoing a phonological shift, one of the changes being the dropping of the initial ng- (IPA: /ŋ/) consonant to a null initial. For instance, the word ngaa4 (牙, meaning "tooth"), ends up being pronounced aa4 (Note: Cantonese romanization provided using Jyutping). Prescriptivists tend to consider these changes as substandard and denounce them for being "lazy sounds" (懶音).

However, in a case of hypercorrection, some speakers have started pronouncing words that should have a null initial using an initial ng-, even though according to historical Chinese phonology, only words with Yang tones (which correspond to tones 4, 5, and 6 in Cantonese) had voiced initials (which includes ng-). Words with Yin tones (1, 2, and 3) historically should have unvoiced or null initials. Because of this hypercorrection, words such as the word oi3 (愛, meaning "love"), which has a Yin tone, are pronounced by speakers with an ng- initial, ngoi3.

German

In German, the dialect spoken in the city of Düsseldorf and its surroundings heavily features 'ch' [ç] sounds where a standard German calls for 'sch' [ʃ] sounds. Speakers with this accent would say 'Fich' [fɪç] instead of 'Fisch' [fɪʃ] (fish), and 'Tich' [tɪç] instead of 'Tisch' [tɪʃ] (table). This is due to a hypercorrection of the Rhineland accent prevalent in that area of Germany, an accent that replaces many 'ch' [ç] sounds with 'sch' [ʃ] sounds, making for a colourful accent often considered simple or vulgar by speakers of standard German. Attempting to avoid this error, speakers of the Düsseldorf accent hypercorrect it to an abundance of 'ch' [ç].

Another example is use of the genitive case where the dative case is required. Colloquially, the genitive is often dropped in favor of the dative even if correct grammatical usage demands the genitive. Because language critics deride such substitution, many German-speakers use the genitive even with prepositions that actually demand the dative (e.g., entgegen, entlang, gegenüber), seemingly under the false impression that the genitive is always right and the dative is always wrong, or at least that the genitive is a better form of the dative.

Hebrew and Yiddish

Careful Hebrew speakers are taught to avoid the colloquial pronunciation of "bediyyuq" (exactly) as [bi·ˈdjuk]. Many speakers accordingly pronounce "lihyot" (to be) as if it were spelled "lehiyyot" ([lɛ·hi·ˈjot]), though there is no grammatical justification for doing so.

Hypercorrection can work in both directions. It is well known that the vowel qamatz gadol, which in the accepted Sephardic pronunciation is rendered as /aː/, becomes /o/ in Ashkenazi Hebrew. Many older British Jews therefore consider it more colloquial and "down-home" to say "Shobbes", "cholla" and "motza", though the vowel in these words is in fact a patach, which is rendered as /a/ in both Sephardi and Ashkenazi Hebrew.

Latin

In the Middle Ages, the spelling of Latin was simplified in various respects: for example, ae and oe became e, and ch became c. Occasionally these changes were reversed, and e and c were sometimes expanded to ae (or oe) and ch, even when such spelling contradicted Classical Latin. These misspellings are often preserved in English derivatives, including et cætera (occasionally found as a variant for et cetera); foetus (originally fetus); lachrymose, from lachryma (originally lacrima, "a tear"); and schedule, from schedula (originally scedula).

References

 

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