Bonus 5: Hypercorrection (Patreon)

Is it "you and me" or "you and I"? Does "octopus" pluralize as "octopuses", "octopi" or "octopodes? If you're ordering a nice bottle of champagne, how do you say Moët? And what does that say about you?

People care a lot about talking "correctly" -- sometimes so much that we over-apply things we've been corrected on even in contexts where they didn't originally apply, a phenomenon known as hypercorrection. 

Hypercorrection and what we even think of as "correct" or "fancy" isn't just about the rules of grammar: it can also tell us a lot about the rules of society.  

If you have other examples of hypercorrection, feel free to share them with your fellow lingthusiasts in the comments!

Read the transcript here.

This topic was nominated by Rob Hoelz (thanks Rob!), and voted on by all of our lovely patrons.

Here are the links mentioned in this episode:

• you and me/you and I 
• Ever wondered what the plural of octopus is?  
• How do you say Moët? Linguistic snobbery and knowledge
• How to pluralize loanwords
• Hypercorrection in ELLO (English Language and Linguistics Online) 

You can listen to this episode on this page, via the Patreon RSS or download the mp3. A transcript is available for this episode as a Google Doc. Lingthusiasm is also on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter.  Email us at lingthusiasm [at] gmail [dot] com or chat to us on the Patreon page.

Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic. Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our producer is Claire Gawne and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles. Recorded on June 30th 2017.