Solecism  

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In traditional grammar, a solecism is a phrase that trespasses grammatical boundaries. The word was originally used by the Greeks for what they perceived as mistakes in their language. Ancient Athenians considered the dialect of the inhabitants of their colony Soli in Cilicia to be a corrupted form of their own pure Attic dialect, full of "solecisms" (Greek: σολοικισμοί, soloikismoí; Sing.: σολοικισμός, soloikismós).

Examples

Here are some examples of usages often regarded as solecisms in standard English:

Wrong grammatical person

• "This is just between you and I" for "This is just between you and me" (hypercorrection to avoid the common "you and me" form in the predicate of copulative sentences, even though "me" is the standard pronoun for the object of a preposition)

Wrong agreement between verb and subject

• "He ain't going nowhere" for "He isn't [or "he's not"] going anywhere" or "he is going nowhere" (dialectical usage; see "ain't" and double negative)

Wrong pronoun

• "Whom shall I say is calling?" for "Who shall I say is calling?" (hypercorrection resulting from the perception that "whom" is a formal version of "who" or that the pronoun is functioning as an object when, in fact, it is a subject [One would say, "Shall I say she is calling?]. The leading pronoun could only be an object if "say" were used transitively and the sentence structured thus: "Whom shall I say to be calling?")

Unconventional prefix

• Irregardless for regardless (nonstandard usage from analogy with constructions like "irreverent," "irrespective," and "irrevocable," where the negative prefix "in-" changes to "ir-" but becomes redundant because of "-less")

Double subject

• "The woman, she is here" for "The woman is here" or "She is here" (nonstandard usage with the double subject "she")

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)

Double copula

• "The issue is, is his attitude is poor." for "The issue is his attitude is poor."

Wrong copula

• "The reason being..." for "The reason is..."

Register

What is considered a solecism in one register of a language might be acceptable usage in another. For example, "The world keeps turning for you and I" (10cc) may be more acceptable in a song (see Artistic license) than in prose.Template:According to whom

See also

• Catachresis
• Disputed English grammar
• Fowler's Modern English Usage
• Malapropism
• Zeugma, a rhetorical use of solecism for effect
• Prescription and description