Thread: Hypercorrection in Russian?

In American English sometimes people pronounce a word a certain way or use a particularly grammatical construction to assert their social status, even though technically the pronunciation or construction is incorrect. Two examples come immediately to mind: pronouncing the ‘t’ in ‘often’ and saying things like “just between you and I” instead of “just between you and me.”

Are there any similar things in Russian? That is, pronunciations or grammatical constructions that are not technically correct, but people say them anyway in an attempt to prove they are educated?

Originally Posted by doninphxaz

...even though technically the pronunciation or construction is incorrect. Two examples come immediately to mind: ... and saying things like “just between you and I” instead of “just between you and me.”

Pronunciation or construction of "you and I" is technically incorrect (???). I always thought that "me" instead "I" is the colloquial speech.

AFAIK "Me" is objective case.
roughly:
"you and I" = "ты и я" (subject)
"you and me" = "тебя и меня", "тебе и мне", "тобой и мной" (object)

Hm... What about this:
- Who is it?
- It's me.

Originally Posted by delog

Hm... What about this:
- Who is it?
- It's me.

It's all right.
It - subject (подлежащее)
is - predicate (сказуемое)
me - object (дополнение)

Object requires objective case.
Let English linguists correct me if I am wrong.

Originally Posted by it-ogo

It's all right.
It - subject (подлежащее)
is - predicate (сказуемое)
me - object (дополнение)

Object requires objective case.
Let English linguists correct me if I am wrong.

I believe in this case "me" is not an object but a predicate nominative, so the objective case cannot be justified with that. It is perfectly alright though. I'll quote an article that puts it very well:

"What should you say on the phone: “It is me?” or “It is I?” Maybe you should just hang up the phone and send a fax.
The rivalry between “It is me” and “It is I” is right up there with Pepsi and Coke battling for market shares.
The “It is I” camp argues that forms of the verb to be, such as is and was, should be followed by pronouns in the nominative case. Therefore, here the pronoun would be I.
On the other hand, the “It is me” camp counters with the argument that noun case in English has disappeared. Further, they contend that the pronoun case has become so weakened that the force of word order now overrides the force of case.
The placement of the pronoun in the object part of the sentence “It is me” and “It is us” has become increasingly acceptable as standard usage even in boardrooms. But if you're speaking with a language purist who is likely to become offended by today's more relaxed standards of speech and writing, use the time-honored “It is I” instead of “It is me.”

As for hypercorrection in Russian, it makes me think of elderly ladies from St. Petersburg who look like they have been working as librarians for a hundred years, and teach ballet lessons on Fridays, and faint if they hear someone say "жопа". They pronounce "э" instead of "е" in words like "пионэр", "музэй", "крэм", which sounds hilariously posh to me. There are also elderly Muscovites who would say "маленькый" and "умылса" rather than "маленький" and "умылся". See old Soviet movies and cartoons like "Аленькый (tee hee) цветочек".

Hypercorrection is also common in wording and grammar. If you read some semi-formal texts like memos or explanatory statements you will see what I mean: the author usually has this idea that long, complicated and indecipherable equals correct and educated, hence the overuse of commas, chains of consecutive nouns in genitive case, page-long sentences that would make Leo Tolstoy weep (much like this one), and freakishly awkward derivatives like "просрачивать".

Plus, there is a recent trend to stick to hyper-accurate pronunciation as opposed to lazy pronunciation. I admit that gobbling up half of the syllables sounds awful, but hearing "здравствуйте" (with the first "в" voiced) instead of "здрасте" or "сегодня" (yep, not "сиводня" or "сёдня" but actually "сегодня") from a person is just plain creepy. And wrong.

Originally Posted by mrs dalliard

I believe in this case "me" is not an object but a predicate nominative

I see. Though looks like the very idea of predicate nominative is obsolete in English.

In Russian, however, nominative is used in such constructions indeed.

Originally Posted by mrs dalliard

Hypercorrection is also common in wording and grammar. If you read some semi-formal texts like memos or explanatory statements you will see what I mean: the author usually has this idea that long, complicated and indecipherable equals correct and educated, hence the overuse of commas, chains of consecutive nouns in genitive case, page-long sentences that would make Leo Tolstoy weep (much like this one), and freakishly awkward derivatives like "просрачивать".

Hmmm... Didn't you mean "просрочивать", or?..

Thank you. Yes, you are right that pronouns in object position must be objective case. I just have a problem with impersonal sentences.

Hmm... And here we come to the problem "Who is guilty?" "What to do?" "What is correct?" Why following pattern is correct?

Hypercorrection means neglecting natural language laws in favor of formal rules (forced or cooked-up). For example, masculine кофе. Natural laws follows from practicability (which is often intuitive) and tradition while hyper-rules come from oversimplified model of the language when it is considered absolute.

For example someone may insist that "в лесе" is correct just because he learned at school only six cases.

So. The keyword is purpose. If someone wants to make fun and said "просрачить все полимеры", then "просрочить" is hypercorrection. If someone writes an official paper "просрачить" (because of the pattern) would be hypercorrection again. Everything is relative.

I don't think that chains of genitives or complicated sentences are the same phenomena. It is just a different style which is made for specific purposes. If someone write research report or legal paper in a colloquial manner, that will cause great problems not because of the snobbery of other people, but because such papers will be unusable - not enough exact. Still wrong style can be considered as hypercorrection sometimes...

Originally Posted by it-ogo

Everything is relative.

I second that.

I don't think that chains of genitives or complicated sentences are the same phenomena. It is just a different style which is made for specific purposes. If someone write research report or legal paper in a colloquial manner, that will cause great problems not because of the snobbery of other people, but because such papers will be unusable - not enough exact. Still wrong style can be considered as hypercorrection sometimes...

I guess I have to agree: the канцелярит I wrote about is more pseudo than hyper-correction. "Согласно приказа" is not correct but people often think it is and make it look like it is. I just jumped at the possibility of listing all my pet peeves. And, yes, it is a different style but it doesn't take to be wrong to be special.