Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/125

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THE LAPSES OF SPEECH
121

slips require, as do the more pronounced lapses of conduct, some illumination from the introspective side.

Whether we are speaking, or are reading aloud from the printed page, or are copying, or are engaged in original writing, we are likely to find that which is about to enter the motor field anticipating its utterance: for between feeling and willing, there emerges between filling; expert persons becomes expersons; a lecturer alludes to the tropic of Cancercorn; in public reading, the beautiful is as useful is rendered the buseful; in writing pieces of machinery, the pen writes pieches. So also in German: Sturm und Drang becomes Strang; one intending to say Nach Innsbruck aus München says Nach Minnsbruck; so also Minuster für Kultur und Unterricht; Es war mir auf der Brust so schwer emerges as Es war mir auf der Schwert; and (with the slip immediately noticed and corrected), Die Sympather . . . die Japaner sind mir viel sympathischer. So with persistence of words or fragments thereof: With revelation in mind, the speaker actually said, Those who believe in evolution think that revolution; and we meet with refinement and gentlement gentleness); secluded retruts (retreats); Die Psalmen sind Producte der jüdischen Müse (Muse). Slips of anticipation are naturally more frequent than those of persistence, for the reason that the margin that is qualifying for consciousness is naturally closer to our concern than that which is dismissed or dismissible; and, perhaps still more naturally do both appear at once, thus producing interchanges of the threads of utterance. Portar and mestle; in one swell foop; dame, leaf and blind; sody and boul; Phosford's acid Horsephate; go out on the corch to pool; make a noyful joise—these hardly need interpretation, as execution reveals intent. Somewhat more divorced from meaning, yet intelligible, are, Are you strailing out for your mole? (strolling out for your mail); which he whiches (wishes); the water the wetter (the wetter the water); flutter by (butterfly). Put the tray on the weights; going to the coal to buy the wharf; set your leg on four chairs, are simple in formula; but I bought three dollars for I bought my dress for three dollars; collooding for colliding in the loop; put plustard for put mustard and flour in the plaster, are clear only after the intention is revealed. The German offers parallel models: Die Milo von Venus; Wertlaut (Lautwert); Einen Zuck Huter (Einen Hut Zucker); Ich verganz gass (Ich vergass ganz); Zwecktischer Prak (praktischer Zweck); Tapps und Schnabak (Schnapps und Tabak).

There are still more complex cases in which various of these factors and others combine to give the substituted expression more misleading similarity to the proper one. When the perverted phrase is meaningless and sounds strange to the ear, we are quite likely, though by no