Doit-on aiguayer ou rincer ses robes ? – Quand l'usage l'emporte sur la norme
When Linguistic Usage Modifies the Norm

Summary/Abstract: Linguistic rules established on historic, logical and etymological criteria are sometimes broken in usage, which is guided by the need for expressiveness, the law of the least effort, or analogy. The use of certain words, grammatical forms and constructions that deviate from the linguistic system makes the object of corrective grammars, which flourished in France, during the XIXth century. The language and expression guides and the dictionaries of misused phrases contain lists of barbarisms, solecisms already pointed out by the grammarians of the previous centuries, as well as grammatical innovations and new lexical meanings rejected by the etymologists of the time. Besides listing linguistic “bad usages”, the authors of these guides explain the source of errors, comment on the words and phrases condemned by the rules and, eventually, propose forms and constructions considered to be correct. Some of these corrections are taken into account by users and their expression is improved. Some other condemned usages prove themselves more influential than the grammarians’ recommendations: they are generally adopted and manage to change the system. So they appear in the dictionaries of the XXth and XXIst centuries, which testifies to their survival. Some of these (mis)usages are no longer registered as “criticized”. They have even managed to evict from language the constructions formerly recommended as correct. Our research is going to deal with these “misusages” having triumphed over their criticisms.

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