THE FATE OF A WORD MARTYR AND ITS MIGRATION FROM LANGUAGE USAGE TO NORM

Speech culture includes the ability of a person who can speak and write to use language as a means of communication correctly, that is in accordance with established norms. In the article one of the frequently used words of the Russian language is considered within the context of the general idea of the importance of «correct speaking». The use of this word in speech regularly deviates from the standard guidelines and is often estimated by linguists as incorrect. The study of the use of the forms nadet’/ odet’ in combination with articles of clothing names on the basis of the two corpora (the National Corpus and the Speech Corpus of the Russian Language) suggests that the standard norm (nadet’ (to put on) — what, odet’ (to dress) — whom) has become of little relevance, and that the verb nadet’ is getting out of use; the verb odet’/ odevat’ (to put on) is being fixed as the real norm of speaking, and this should be accepted as a fait accompli. The corpus aproach to the analysis of the material shows conclusively that the use of this construction in modern (in the first place, oral) speech does not depend either on the social characteristics of the speaker (gender, age, level of education), or on the situation of communication (formal — informal), that is, it has become widely spread, conventional and largely acceptable to all speakers, and so standard. We can say that in front of our eyes one of words has moved from language usage to norm.