Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 December 12

= December 12 =

"momentary lapse in judgment" vs "momentary lapse of judgment"
"momentary lapse in judgment" vs "momentary lapse of judgment"

Which one of the two is better?

Both seems to be in active use, but I can't tell which one is more grammatical or which one sounds better. Or maybe there's no real difference. Liberté2 (talk) 02:22, 12 December 2023 (UTC)


 * I think which one sounds better likely depends a considerable amount on the phonotactics of the surrounding phrase.
 * To me, a lapse of judgement has hints of an isolated incident in an otherwise solid "block" of judgement, while a lapse in judgement sounds more like an emergent interruption in a "flow" that may be part of a greater interruptive pattern. But these connotations are exceedingly minor and likely rather specific to my particular idiolect. Remsense  留  02:39, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
 * This will be one of those cases where it depends on local usage. Both are "correct". I feel more comfortable with the "in" version. But I'm far from the centre of global English usage, in Melbourne, Australia. HiLo48 (talk) 02:53, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Until late last century lapse of judgement was more popular, but it was overtaken by lapse in judgement in the 90s. --Lambiam 09:50, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
 * In contrast, lapse of memory remains considerably more popular than lapse in memory. But lapse in coverage beats lapse of coverage. --Lambiam 10:01, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
 * @Liberté2 Collins suggests "lapse" is a countable noun, and prefers "lapse of". (There are other meanings for "lapse".) As others have said above, context and location are considerations. See also wikt:Judgment: Spelling. Bazza (talk) 10:10, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
 * "Lapse in judgement" looks to me like a lapse of the pen, or sounds like a lapse of the tongue, or is a lapse of taste, perhaps indicative of a lapse of reason. DuncanHill (talk) 10:21, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Records indicate that as of 2018, roughly 22‰ of lapses are momentary, up from 9.5‰ in 2000. Folly Mox (talk) 14:08, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
 * And then there are the momentous lapses, without a discernible trend. --Lambiam 20:28, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you, everyone. Liberté2 (talk) 00:25, 13 December 2023 (UTC)