grammatical error

Definition:

A term used in prescriptive grammar for an instance of faulty, unconventional, or controversial usage, such as a comma splice or misplaced modifier. Contrast grammatical error with correctness.

See also:

• Barbarism
• Common Revision and Editing Symbols and Abbreviations
• Grammar
• Grammar Checker
• Hypercorrection
• Lessons in Proofreading: Typos, Orpahs, and the Little Demon Titivillus
• Nonstandard English
• Pragmatic Competence
• Sic and Sick: Commonly Confused Words
• Solecism
• What Is Grammar?

Examples & Observations:

• "The expression 'grammatical error' sounds, and is, in a sense, paradoxical, for the reason that a form can not be grammatical and erroneous at the same time. One would not say musical discord. . . . Because of the apparent contradiction of terms, the form grammatical error should be avoided and 'error in construction,' or 'error in English,' etc., be used in its stead. Of course one should never say, 'good grammar' or 'bad grammar.'"
  (J. T. Baker, Correct English, Mar. 1, 1901)



• First mobster: Hey. They's throwin' robots.
  Linguo: They are throwing robots.
  Second mobster: It's disrespecting us. Shut up a'you face.
  Linguo: Shut up your face.
  Second mobster: Whatsa matta you?
  First mobster: You ain't so big.
  Second mobster: Me an' him are gonna whack you in the labonza.
  Linguo: Mmmm . . . Aah! Bad grammar overload. Error. Error.
  [Linguo explodes]
  ("Trilogy of Error," The Simpsons, 2001)



• "Usage is a concept that embraces many aspects of and attitudes toward language. Grammar is certainly only a small part of what goes to make up usage, though some people use one term for the other, as when they label what is really a controversial point of usage a grammatical error."
  (Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed., 2003)



• "Because grammatical may mean either (1) 'relating to grammar' [grammatical subject] or (2) 'consistent with grammar' [a grammatical sentence], there is nothing wrong with the age-old phrase grammatical error (sense 1). It's as acceptable as the phrases criminal lawyer and logical fallacy."
  (Bryan Garner, Garner's Modern American Usage. Oxford Univ. Press, 2009)



• "Error analysis, as a descriptive rather than a prescriptive approach to error, provides a methodology for determining why a student makes a particular grammatical error and has been a potentially valuable borrowing from this field [research in second-language acquisition], one that could have altered the prescriptive drilling of standard forms which still comprises much of basic writing texts. Unfortunately, however, error analysis in the composition classroom has generally served to simply keep the focus on error."
  (Eleanor Kutz, "Between Students' Language and Academic Discourse: Interlanguage as Middle Ground." Negotiating Academic Literacies, ed. by Vivian Zamel and Ruth Spack. Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998)

Also Known As: error, usage error, grammar error or mistake, bad grammar