Hypercorrection

“… for the both of us.”

Adjectives, Common English Blunders, Conjunctions, Hypercorrection, Pronouns

My wife heard this a couple of days ago on television.

Problem:
The definite article “the” is incorrect in this phrase.

Explanation:
The word “both” is an adjective that means two together (e.g., “I saw both suspects.”), a pronoun that means the one as well as the other (e.g., “Both of them were flying to Paris.”, or a conjunction that means alike or equally (e.g., “Jim is both tall and handsome.”).

It’s clear, then, that the word “both” was used as a pronoun in the phrase that my wife heard.

Pronouns do not take articles in front of them, so “the both” is always incorrect.

Beyond that, one can see that “the” (or “a”) should never precede “both” in a sentence.

For fun, I searched Google for “the both” (with quotation marks) and got about 2,130,000 matches. Some of those matches were for grammatically correct forms such as “the Both Sides Now album”; most, though, were incorrect.

I believe that this common English blunder sometimes indicates hypercorrection: if “both” is good, then “the both” must be better. Wrong!

Solution:
“… for both of us.”

“I’m actually going to lie them down.”

Common English Blunders, Hypercorrection, Verbs

I heard this yesterday on HGTV’s “Design on a Dime” television program.

Problem:
The verb “lie” is incorrect for this sentence.

Explanation:
The verb “lie” — when it means to be in a horizontal position — is an intransitive verb.

So one cannot “lie them down”.

“Lay” is the correct verb for this sentence.

I believe that the use of “lie” in this sentence is an example of hypercorrection. The speaker of the sentence probably knew that “lay” is used too often as an incorrect substitute for “lie”, so she chose “lie” when “lay” actually was the correct verb.

Solution:
“I’m actually going to lay them down.”

“I would like for them to …”

Common English Blunders, Hypercorrection, Prepositions

My wife heard this on NPR this morning.

Problem:
The preposition “for” is inappropriate here.

Explanation:
Inserting prepositions where they don’t belong is becoming, unfortunately, a common English blunder.

The preposition “for” does not belong in the opening of the sentence that my wife heard.

“I would like” is a weaker way of saying “I want”.

Replacing “would like” with the stronger “want” gives us “I want for them to …”, where “for” certainly does not belong.

This confirms that “for” does not belong in “I would like for them to …”.

My suspicion is that the speaker believed that including “for” made him or her seem more educated — perhaps a form of hypercorrection.

Solution:
“I would like them to …”