Literary notes about Solecism (AI summary)
In literature, the term "solecism" is employed in a multifaceted way—sometimes denoting a grammatical or stylistic error, but more often serving as a potent metaphor for deeper failings or transgressions. For instance, Thomas Carlyle uses the word to castigate not only literal errors in language but also political and moral missteps, describing a court or even a revolutionist as embodiments of core faults or aberrations ([1], [2], [3]). Carlyle extends its metaphorical reach further to encompass the disintegration of societal order, with expressions like "World-Solecism" underscoring profound systemic breakdowns ([4], [5], [6]). Additionally, other authors such as Bernard Shaw and Dale Carnegie’s collaborators recognize its usage in highlighting errors ranging from minor lapses in decorum to major violations of accepted norms, as seen in contexts addressing both rich men’s faults and the precise distinctions among various misstatements ([7], [8], [9], [10]).
- And so this poor Versailles Court, as the chief or central Solecism, finds all the other Solecisms arrayed against it.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle - In very truth, a Revolutionist of this kind, is he not a Solecism? Disowned by Nature and Art; deserving only to be erased, and disappear!
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle - Doomed mortal;—for is it not a doom to be Solecism incarnate!
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle - Inevitable: it is the breaking-up of a World-Solecism, worn out at last, down even to bankruptcy of money!
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle - "Depose it not; say that it is inviolable, that it was spirited away, was enleve; at any cost of sophistry and solecism, reestablish it!"
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle - Speak their convictions that Louis is a Prisoner of War; and cannot be put to death without injustice, solecism, peril?
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle - However, it was easy to ignore a rich man's solecism.
— from Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy by Bernard Shaw - Define the words, ( a ) trite; ( b ) solecism; ( c ) colloquialism; ( d ) slang; ( e ) vulgarism; ( f ) neologism.
— from The Art of Public Speaking by Dale Carnegie and J. Berg Esenwein - To call such a man "ambitious," to figure him as the prurient wind-bag described above, seems to me the poorest solecism.
— from On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle - Barbarism and solecism: for will it convince or convict any man to blow half an ounce of lead through the head of him?
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle