A word that means "overcompensation" regarding grammar?

Question

I'm looking for the word that people use to describe when someone tries too hard to be grammatically correct.

An example is saying "she came to see Naomi and I" instead of saying "Naomi and me"

This would be because the person had heard that "Naomi and I" was correct regarding a different part of grammar (when "Naomi and I" is the subject, as in "Naomi and I went to the store")

Another example is just adding letters to words instead of leaving them out. Lots of people will leave off the "-g" in "ing" words, but when someone overcompensates they might add extra letters like saying "catergory" instead of category.

Answer 1

Hypercorrection is the term that is normally used.

The classic example of hypercorrection is the use of “you and I” when “you and me” would actually be correct.

Sounding the G in ing words, or saying (or writing) something like catergory instead of category...is more of a phonetic transcription of local dialect than it is hypercorrection.

Answer 2

Great question!

It's clear you are not confining it just to grammar, but also to pronunciation. No reason to stop there -- here are still more examples in still more domains.

Spelling.
The silent s in "island", the silent b in "doubt", and the peculiar h-y in "rhyme" are all misspellings originated by scholars who thought they knew more than they did. In fact, "iland" is unrelated to the French "isle" and should never have been "corrected" with an s; "dout" and "dette" were regularly formed until someone mistakenly tried to honor their Latin great-great-grandparents instead of their French parents; and "rime" was never Greek and has nothing to do with "rhythm".

Vocabulary and Usage.
There's a vast library of material on people who attempt to displace their native vernacular with words and usages borrowed from the elite, or the mainstream. A (now rather dated) example of this is U and non-U originated by Alan S C Ross and popularized by Nancy Mitford.

In the United States, there are scholars who study every utterance made by Condoleezza Rice and claim they find evidence of subtle overcompensation. I daresay the same is likely true of many public figures whose less-accomplished parents groomed them from an early age for later intellectual achievement far beyond their own level.

Many forms of oratory and writing use vocabulary or constructions that are just plain odd in a normal vernacular. For example, in technical writing, the words "select" and "choose" are almost universally employed where real people would say "pick". My opinion is that this is a clear affectation, but there are those who justify it (and similar usages) by appealing to ease of translation into other languages -- "choose" is only ever a verb with basically one meaning, whereas "pick" can be two kinds of noun with wildly different meanings, as well as a different verb with an unpleasant dermatological connotation.

Life.
There is an enormously ancient tradition of imitating one's betters. One sees it in all social primates and most social mammals. It's only natural that we humans do the same in our use of language, which is arguably a form of mutual grooming. :-)


And finally, to answer the actual question you asked (at long last!): I think "overcompensate" is as good a term as any.

Answer 3

Sure, in most cases you can word play and make your own meanings anyway but I think that is how a lot of people use it.