• A nonstandard usage or grammatical construction.
      Such as "...between you and I..."
• A violation of etiquette.
• Any impropriety, a mistake, or an incongruity.

From Greek soloikismos, from soloikizein (soloiki/zein), to speak incorrectly, from soloikos, speaking incorrectly, after Soloi (Soli), an Athenian colony in Cilicia where a dialect regarded as substandard was spoken. Greek has various verbs about speaking Greek and other tongues such as hellenizein (e(llhni/zein "to speak Greek"), attikizein (a)ttiki/zein "to speak Attic Greek").

Not to be confused with solipsism (the belief that the self is the only reality).

Return to WORDS