'Orthoepy' means the correct use of
words, from the Greek orth- + -epos, correct + word, speech.
The English meaning of orthoepy is correct
pronunciation, or the study of pronunciation. This is the only sense in English acknowledged by the
OED and
Webster's Dictionary. In this sense, its opposite is
barbarism.
However, in ancient Greek, ''orthoepeia'' generally had the sense of "correct
diction" (cf.
LSJ ad loc., or the etymology in the OED); the archaic English term for this subject is 'orthology', and in this sense its opposite is
solecism. The study of orthoepeia by the
Greek sophists of the fifth century BC, especially
Prodicus (c.
396 BC) and
Protagoras, also included proto-
logical concepts. Protagoras criticized Homer for making the word for "wrath" feminine (Aristotle, ''Sophistic Refutations'' 14) and for praying to the Muse with an imperative (ibid. ''Poetics'' 19). Plato depicts Protagoras criticizing the poet
Simonides for contradicting himself, and then shows
Socrates and Prodicus arguing to the contrary that Protagoras has conflated the senses of the words "be" and "become" (
''Protagoras'' 339a-340c).
Euripides and
Aeschylus bicker over ''orthotes epeon'' in
Aristophanes' comedy ''
The Frogs''.