Is there such a phenomenon as "undercorrection/hypocorrection?

[Wilson Gray]

Not quite. "Who is car was it" is ungrammatical. He said, "He [a
policeman] ax me whose, uh, who car was it." What the speaker did was
to "correct" the standard possessive in /-s/ to the BE possessive
without /-s/.

-Wilson

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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Matthew Gordon <gordonmj at MISSOURI.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: Is there such a phenomenon as
>               "undercorrection/hypocorrection?
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>So by Wilson's analysis what the man said was
>"He aks me 'who's, uh, who car was it?"
>Right? In other words he was uncontracting a contraction in this formal
>context.
>
>
>On 3/16/05 4:58 PM, "Wilson Gray" <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> wrote:
>
>>  Yes, they both were. It was the "Judge Joe Brown" show, which is a
>>  clone of "Judge Judy," if you're not familiar with it. Anyway, Judge
>>  Joe has absolutely no sympathy for the common street thug and has
>>  made that very clear. My impression was that the speaker, a common
>>  street thug, suddenly became aware of the difference between his
>>  low-class BE and the judge's middle-class BE. And, knowing that Judge
>>  Joe Brown is not the kind of brother that you can conversate with, he
>>  decided that it would behoove him to talk as "proper" as he could.
>>  But you really have to have had practice in order to switch to
>>  another dialect in mid-utterance, unless you're doing it all the
>>  time. I think our guy meant to shift "aks" to "ast" or even "asted,"
>>  but it was already too late and he wound up "down-shifting," so to
>>  speak, from the "proper" "whose" to "who" by accident.
>>
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>>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>  Poster:       Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIOU.EDU>
>>>  Subject:      Re: Is there such a phenomenon as
>>>                "undercorrection/hypocorrection?
>>>
>>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>  --
>>>
>>>  Were both the interviewer and the guest black?  Might this have been
>>>  accommodation to an "in-group" interlocutor?
>>>
>>>  At 04:14 PM 3/16/2005, you wrote:
>>>>  Spoken by a black TV-show guest:
>>>>
>>>>  He aks me _whose, uh, who_ car was this.
>>>>
>>>>  -Wilson