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#83761 10/18/02 11:30 AM
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inuodie Offline OP
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This has been nagging at me in the back of my mind for a very long time. Way back in 5th grade grammar class we learned a term that referred to how people often make grammatical errors because they are trying too hard to sound grammatically correct, but they don't really understand the rules.
Examples are:

"Just between you and I..."
"If you have any questions, send Joe or myself and e-mail."

I think it starts with "hyper" or "super", or something like that. Please, can anyone tell me what the word is?


#83762 10/18/02 11:39 AM
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Hypercorrection?

I think this might have been the word of the day a while back.

k


#83763 10/18/02 11:50 AM
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Hypercorrection is the term.


#83764 10/18/02 12:07 PM
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I've also heard it referred to as hyperurbanism.

Welcome aboard, inoudie! I see you've mastered the markup on the first try! Took me weeks.


#83765 10/18/02 12:15 PM
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Yeah, maybe inuodie is one of those rare people who actually read and learn the FAQs before posting!

I'm impressed, too, and welcome aboard!

WW


#83766 10/18/02 01:27 PM
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Unlike us, huh, Wordwind?


#83767 10/18/02 01:30 PM
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As I remember in my early posts I tried in-line html. Max straightened me out and you, my dear ASp, welcomed me. Little did you suspect


#83768 10/18/02 01:43 PM
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But is hypercorrection solely something people apply to themselves, or can somebody hypercorrect someone else?

If the latter, then perhaps inuodie's term should be "self-hypercorrection".

Hmm.


#83769 10/18/02 02:09 PM
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Hyper-correction or hyper-urbanization is the term for the practice of misusing a nominative or reflexive pronoun when an objective one is called for. The hyper-correction version is a referrence to the idea that is an overreaction to a construction of the sort: me and him went fishing last weekend. If I were to say something like just between you and me and you were to huffily say that I should have said just between you and I, I could reasonably say that you had hyper-corrected me.



#83770 10/18/02 06:40 PM
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me and him went fishing

Written down, this seems gross, of course.
But in the spoken word, many parts of speech are left unsaid and understood to have been purposely left out, making the spoken whole grammatically intact.

In the example above, the complete version is, "Me and him; we went fishing. To have said (rather than have written) "He and I, we went fishing," would be super-grammatically imperfect, surely?

(And you couldn't even say, "Him and me ..." without sounding pretensious, I trow.)


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