philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and writing, written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defin ...

, a lapsus (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

for "lapse, slip, error") is an involuntary mistake made while writing or speaking.

Investigations

In 1895 an investigation into verbal slips was undertaken by a philologist and a psychologist, Rudolf Meringer and

Karl Mayer Karl Mayer is a fictional character portrayed by Richard Burgi and created by television producer and screenwriter Marc Cherry for the ABC television series '' Desperate Housewives''. He is the ex-husband of housewife Susan Mayer (Teri Hatcher ...

, who collected many examples and divided them into separate types.

Psychoanalysis

Freud was to become interested in such mistakes from 1897 onwards, developing an interpretation of slips in terms of their unconscious meaning. Subsequently followers of his like

Ernest Jones Alfred Ernest Jones (1 January 1879 – 11 February 1958) was a Welsh neurologist and psychoanalyst. A lifelong friend and colleague of Sigmund Freud from their first meeting in 1908, he became his official biographer. Jones was the first En ...

developed the theme of lapsus in connection with writing, typing, and misprints. According to

Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts in ...

's early

psychoanalytic theory Psychoanalytic theory is the theory of personality organization and the dynamics of personality development that guides psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology. First laid out by Sigmund Freud in the late 19th century, psyc ...

, a lapsus represents a bungled act that hides an

unconscious Unconscious may refer to: Physiology * Unconsciousness, the lack of consciousness or responsiveness to people and other environmental stimuli Psychology * Unconscious mind, the mind operating well outside the attention of the conscious mind a ...

desire: “the phenomena can be traced back to incompletely suppressed psychical material...pushed away by consciousness”.

Jacques Lacan Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, , ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, and pu ...

would thoroughly endorse the Freudian interpretation of unconscious motivation in the slip, arguing that “in the ''lapsus'' it is...clear that every unsuccessful act is a successful, not to say 'well-turned', discourse”. In the seventies

Sebastiano Timpanaro Sebastiano Timpanaro (September 5, 1923 in Parma – November 26, 2000 in Florence) was an Italian classical philologist, essayist, and literary critic. He was also a long-time Marxist who made important contributions to left-wing political c ...

would controversially take up the question again, by offering a mechanistic explanation of all such slips, in opposition to Freud's theories.

Types of lapsus

In literature, a number of different types of lapsus are named depending on the mode of correspondence: * ''

lapsus linguae In philology, a lapsus (Latin for "lapse, slip, error") is an involuntary mistake made while writing or speaking. Investigations In 1895 an investigation into verbal slips was undertaken by a philologist and a psychologist, Rudolf Meringer and K ...

'' (pl. same): slip of the tongue * ''

lapsus calami In philology, a lapsus (Latin for "lapse, slip, error") is an involuntary mistake made while writing or speaking. Investigations In 1895 an investigation into verbal slips was undertaken by a philologist and a psychologist, Rudolf Meringer and K ...

'': slip of the pen With the variation of ''lapsus clavis'': slip of the typewriter * ''

lapsus manus In philology, a lapsus (Latin for "lapse, slip, error") is an involuntary mistake made while writing or speaking. Investigations In 1895 an investigation into verbal slips was undertaken by a philologist and a psychologist, Rudolf Meringer and Ka ...

'': slip of the hand, similar to ''lapsus calami'' * ''

lapsus memoriae In philology, a lapsus (Latin for "lapse, slip, error") is an involuntary mistake made while writing or speaking. Investigations In 1895 an investigation into verbal slips was undertaken by a philologist and a psychologist, Rudolf Meringer and K ...

'': slip of memory

Types of slips of the tongue

Slips of the tongue can happen on any level: *

Syntactic In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency), ...

- "is" instead of "was". *Phrasal slips of tongue - "I'll explain this tornado later". *Lexical/semantic - "moon full" instead of "full moon". * Morphological level - "workings paper". *Phonological (sound slips) - "flow snurries" instead of "snow flurries". Additionally, each of these five levels of error may take various forms: *

Anticipation Anticipation is an emotion involving pleasure or anxiety in considering or awaiting an expected event. Anticipatory emotions include fear, anxiety, hope and trust. When the anticipated event fails to occur, it results in disappointment (if posit ...

s: Where an early output item is corrupted by an element belonging to a later one, thus "reading list" - "leading list" *Perseverations or post-sonances: Where a later output item is corrupted by an element belonging to an earlier one Thus "waking rabbits" - "waking wabbits". *Deletions: Where an output element is somehow totally lost, thus "same state" - "same sate" *Shift or

Spoonerism A spoonerism is an occurrence in speech in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched (see metathesis) between two words in a phrase. These are named after the Oxford don and ordained minister William Archibald Spooner, w ...

: Moving a letter, thus "black foxes" - "back floxes" *Haplologies or fusion: Half one word and half the other, thus "stummy" instead of "stomach or tummy" *

Pun A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophoni ...

Motivation

Meringer and Mayer highlighted the role of familiar associations and similarities of words and sounds in producing the lapsus. Freud objected that such factors did not cause but only "''favour'' slips of the tongue...in the immense majority of cases my speech is not disturbed by the circumstance that the words I am using recall others with a similar sound...or that familiar associations branch off from them (emphasis copied from original)". Timpanaro later reignited the debate, by maintaining that any given slip can always be explained mechanically without a need for deeper motivation.

J. L. Austin John Langshaw Austin (26 March 1911 – 8 February 1960) was a British philosopher of language and leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy, perhaps best known for developing the theory of speech acts. Austin pointed out that we u ...

had independently seen slips not as revealing a particular complex, but as an ineluctable feature of the human condition, necessitating a continual preparation for excuses and remedial work.

Stanley Cavell Stanley Louis Cavell (; September 1, 1926 – June 19, 2018) was an American philosopher. He was the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University. He worked in the fields of ethics, aesthetics, an ...

, ''Little Did I Know'' (2010) p. 479

References

External links

* {{wiktionary-inline Psychoanalytic terminology Freudian psychology Speech error