Words & WritingGreek → English
Solecism
/ˈsɒlɪsɪzəm/noun
A breach of grammar or syntax, or a lapse of manners.
The Greek roots
Σόλοι
Sóloi
Soloi, city in Cilicia
-ισμός
-ismós
practice, habit
Literally: “talking like a man of Soloi”
The story of the word
Athenian colonists settled Soloi in Cilicia and, according to the story the grammarians told, let their Attic go to seed among neighbours who spoke something else. The city's name became the label for the resulting mangled speech. Ancient rhetoric used the term precisely, against barbarism: a barbarism spoils one word, a solecism spoils the way words are joined. English kept the grammatical sense and added a social one, since both are about getting the construction wrong in public.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
barbarismsolecistic
In a sentence
The letter had one solecism in the first line and he could not stop looking at it.