Meaning & use
hypercorrect
Last updated
Meaning
adjectivecomparabletechnical
Wrongly altered through excessive effort to follow a rule, so that a mistake results where none was needed.
Grammar: Describes a form or usage: a hypercorrect pronunciation.
Patterns
- a hypercorrect form
Saying 'between you and I' is a hypercorrect attempt to sound formal.
Her hypercorrect pronunciation of the name drew puzzled looks.
Some speakers add an extra letter in a hypercorrect effort to sound educated.
Common combinations
- hypercorrect form
- 'Whom' used as a subject is a hypercorrect form.
- hypercorrect pronunciation
- The hypercorrect pronunciation sounded stiff.
- hypercorrect speech
- Hypercorrect speech often appears in formal interviews.
- hypercorrect grammar
- He used hypercorrect grammar in his speech.
Synonyms and how they differ
- overcorrected
- Overcorrected is the plain-language equivalent for a fix that goes too far.
- affected
- Affected describes unnatural style in general, not a specific rule error.
- pedantic
- Pedantic describes a person's fussy attitude, while hypercorrect describes the result.
Opposites
Word family
- hypercorrection noun
- an error caused by trying too hard to be correct
- correct adjective
- right
- correct verb
- to fix a mistake
- correctness noun
- being free of errors
Commonly confused: hypercorrect or hypercritical?
hypercorrect vs hypercritical
Hypercritical means too ready to find fault, which is not the same as a rule error.
Practice
Using 'whom' where 'who' is needed is often a ___ error.
Choose one answer.
Hypercorrect errors come from trying too hard to be correct. The other labels do not describe an overcorrection.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “hypercorrect”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.