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• n  a socially awkward or tactless act

• As when the secretary of solecism talks of "nuanced and fundamentally sharp departures" and "nuance-al differences.
• With a solecism worthy of Sam ("Include me out") Goldwyn, Harvard's Dean of Admissions Fred Glimp reports that high school seniors this year are "selecting themselves.
• Laughter in the Louvre? As gross a solecism, one might think, as a belch in the Sainte-Chapelle.

• faux pas
• gaffe
• slip
• gaucherie

Quotes

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• Thomas Jefferson in Washington Post
  Alarmed, Jefferson replied that this was "a solecism worthy of Don Quixote."
• Lynne Truss in Ottawa Citizen
  To those who care about punctuation, a sentence such as 'Thank God its Friday' (without the apostrophe) rouses feelings not only of despair but of violence ......,Truss writes. "Getting your itses mixed up is the greatest solecism in the...