Abstract:The phenomenon of hypercorrection is a form of analogy well-known linguists. Like all analogies it is expressible as a four-part proportion of which three parts are known and the fourth is inferred, e...The phenomenon of hypercorrection is a form of analogy well-known linguists. Like all analogies it is expressible as a four-part proportion of which three parts are known and the fourth is inferred, e.g. black: white night: What distinguishes hypercorrection from other forms of analogy is the necessary precondition that variants exist within a language of which one is widely regarded by speakers as correct and the other(s) as corrupt. To cite just two examples from my own experience, Standard Brazilian Portuguese [r] corresponds [h] in the colloquial speech of many dialect areas, including Pernambuco in the northeastern part of the country. Thus standard [ratu] (written rato) is colloquial Per nambucano [h?tu] rat. When a television newscaster in Recife ( [hssifi] ) once described the Hong Kong flu as gripe Rong Kong he was paying misdirected, but unmistakeable lip service [f] as a marker of the standard (correct) language in contradistinction [h] as a marker of the local (corrupt) dialect. Similarly, the phoneme /f/ in Malay is confined entirely loanwords (mostly from Arabic), and is replaced by /p/ in ordinary speech: e.g. fikir (educated speech): pikir (colloquial) to think. Given this situation we can understand why a Malay friend in Sarawak some years ago attributed the deteriorating morality of his town the brazenness of the Chinese frostitutes. Both the Brazilian newscaster and the pious Moslem were hypercorrecting in conformity with the following four-part schema:Read More