Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud - Chapter 5 - Mistakes in Speech

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section five of Psychopathology of every Day Life, translated by A. A.
Brill Mistakes in speech. Although the ordinary material of speech
of our mother tongue seems to be guarded against forgetting
its application, however more often succumbs to another disturbance which
is familiar to us as slips of the tongue. What

(00:23):
we observe in normal persons as slips of the tongue
gives the same impression as the first step of the
so called paraphasias which manifests themselves under pathological conditions. I
am in the exceptional position of being about to refer
to a previous work on the subject. In the year
eighteen ninety five, Merringer and C. Meyer published a study

(00:44):
on mistakes in speech and reading, with whose viewpoints I
do not agree. One of the authors, who is the
spokesman in the text, is a philologist actuated by a
linguistic interest to examine the rules governing those slips. He
hoped to deduce from these rules the existence quote of
a definite psychic mechanism, whereby the sounds of a word,

(01:08):
of a sentence, and even the words themselves would be
associated and connected with one another in a quite peculiar manner.
The authors grouped to the examples of speech mistakes collected
by them first according to purely descriptive viewpoints, such as
interchangings for example, Milo of Venus instead of Venus of Milo,

(01:31):
as anticipations for example, the shoes made her sore, that
of the shoes made her feet sore as echoes, and
post positions as contaminations for example, I will soon him
home instead of I will soon go home and will
see him. And substitutions for example, he entrusted his money

(01:51):
to a savings crank instead of a savings bank. Besides
these principal categories, there are some others of lesser importance
or of lesser significance for our purpose. In this scrouping,
it makes no difference whether the transposition, disfigurement, fusion, et
cetera affects single sounds of the word or syllable, or

(02:12):
whole words of the concerned sentence. To explain the various
forms of mistakes in speech, Merringer assumes a varied psychic
value of phonetics. As soon as the innervation affects the
first syllable of a word or the first word of
a sentence, the stimulating process immediately strikes the succeeding sounds

(02:32):
and the following words, and in so far as these
innervations are synchronous, they may affect some changes in one another.
The stimulus of the psychically more intensive sound rings before
or continues echoing, and thus disturbs the less important process
of innervation. It is necessary, therefore, to determine which are

(02:53):
the most important sounds of a word. Marringar states, if
one wishes to know which sound word possesses the greatest intensity,
he should examine himself while searching for a forgotten word.
For example, a name, that which first returns to consciousness
invariably has the greatest intensity prior to the forgetting. Thus,

(03:14):
the most important sounds are the initial sound of the
root syllable and the initial sound of the word itself,
as well as one or another of the accentuated vowels.
Here I cannot help voicing contradiction whether or not the
initial sound of the name belongs to the most important
elements of the word. It is surely not true that,

(03:37):
in the case of the forgetting of the word, it
first returns to consciousness. The above rule is therefore of
no use when we observe ourselves. During the search for
a forgotten name, we are comparatively often forced to express
the opinion that it begins with a certain letter. This
conviction proves to be as often unfounded as founded. Indeed,

(03:59):
I would even go so far as to assert that
in the majority of cases, one reproduces a false initial sound. Also,
in our example, Signirelli, the substitutive name lacked the initial sound,
and the principal syllables were lost. On the other hand,
the less important pair of syllables Eli returned to consciousness

(04:19):
in the substitutive name Botticelli. How little substitutive names respect
the initial sound of the lost names may be learned
from the following case. One day I found it impossible
to recall the name of the small country whose capital
is Monte Carlo. The substitutive names whereas follows piedmont Albania, Montevideo,

(04:41):
Calico in place of Albania Montenegro soon appeared, And then
it struck me that the syllable mont occurred in all
but the last of the substitutive names. It thus became
easy for me to find from the name of Prince
Albert the forgotten name Monaco Calico tactically imitates the syllabic

(05:02):
sequence and rhythm of the forgotten word. If we admit
the conjecture that a mechanism similar to that pointed out
in the Forgetting of Names may also play a part
in the phenomena of speech blunders, we are then led
to a better founded judgment of cases of speech blunders.
The speech disturbance which manifests itself as a speech blunder, may,

(05:23):
in the first place, be caused by the influence of
another component of the same speech, that is, through a
foreesound or an echo, or through another meaning within the
sentence or context which differs from that which the speaker
wishes to utter. In the second place, however, the disturbance
could be brought about analogously to the process in the

(05:45):
case of Signorelli, through influences outside the word, sentence, or context,
from elements which we did not intend to express, and
of whose incitement we became conscious only through the disturbance.
In both modes of origin of the mistake and speech,
the common element lies in the simultaneity of the stimulus,

(06:05):
while the differentiating elements lie in the arrangement within or
without the same sentence or context. The difference does not
at first appear as wide as when it is taken
into consideration in certain conclusions drawn from the symptomatology of
speech mistakes. It is clear, however, that only in the
first case is there a prospect of drawing conclusions from

(06:28):
the manifestations of speech blunders concerning a mechanism which connects
together sounds and words for the reciprocal influence of their articulation.
That is, conclusions such as the philologist hopes to gain
from the study of speech blunders. In the case of
disturbance through influence outside of the same sentence or context,

(06:49):
it would before all be a question of becoming acquainted
with the disturbing elements, and then the question would arise
whether the mechanism of this disturbance cannot also suggest the
probable laws of the formation of speech. We cannot maintain
that Merriinger and Meyer have overlooked the possibility of speech
disturbance through complicated psychic influences, that is, through elements outside

(07:13):
the same word or sentence or the same sequence of words. Indeed,
they must have observed that the theory of the psychic
variation of sounds applies strictly speaking only to the explanation
of sound disturbance, as well as to for sounds and aftersounds.
When the word disturbances cannot be reduced to sound disturbances,

(07:34):
as for example in the substitutions and contaminations of words,
they too have, without hesitation, sought the cause of the
mistake in speech outside of the intended context, and proved
this state of affairs by means of fitting examples. According
to the author's own understanding, it is some similarity between
a certain word in the intended sentence and some other

(07:55):
not intended, which allows the latter to assert itself in
consciousness by cause causing a disfigurement or a compromise formation contamination. Now,
in my work on the interpretation of dreams, I have
shown the part played by the process of condensation in
the origin of the so called manifest contents of the
dream from the latent thoughts of the dream. Any similarity

(08:18):
of objects or of word presentations between two elements of
the unconscious material is taken as a cause for the
formation of a third, which is a composite or compromised formation.
This element represents both components in the dream content and
in view of this origin, it is frequently endowed with
numerous contradictory individual determinants. The formation of substitutions and contaminations

(08:44):
in speech mistakes is therefore the beginning of that work
of condensation which we find taking a most active part
in the construction of the dream. In a small essay
destined for the general reader, Merringer advanced a theory of
very practical significances for certain cases of interchanging of words,
especially for such cases where one word is substituted by

(09:06):
another of opposite meaning. He says, we may still recall
the manner in which the President of the Austrian House
of Deputies opened the session some time ago, Honored Sirs,
I announced the presence of so and so many gentlemen,
and therefore declare the session is closed. The general merriment
first tracted his attention, and he corrected his mistake in

(09:29):
the present case. The probable explanation is that the President
wished himself in a position to close this session from
which he had little good to expect, and the thought
broke through at least partially a frequent manifestation, resulting in
his use of closed in place of opened. That is,
the opposite of the statement intended. Numerous observations have taught me, however,

(09:53):
that we frequently interchange contrasting words. They are always associated
in our speech conscious they lie very close together, and
are easily incorrectly evoked. Still, not in all cases of
contrast substitution is it so simple, as in the example
of the President, as to appear plausible that the speech
mistake occurs merely as a contradiction which arises in the

(10:17):
inner thought of the speaker opposing the sentence uttered. We
have found the analogous mechanism in the analysis of.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
The example aloquis.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
There the inner contradiction asserts itself in the form of
forgetting a word instead of a substitution through its opposite.
But in order to adjust the difference, we may remark
that the little word aloquis is incapable of a contrast
similar to closing and opening, and that the word opening
cannot be subject to forgetting on account of its being

(10:48):
a common component of speech. Having been shown by the
last examples of Merringer and Meyer that speech disturbance may
be caused through the influence of four sounds after sounds
words from the same sentence that were intended for expression,
as well as through the effect of words outside the
sentence intended, the stimulus of which would otherwise not have

(11:11):
been suspected. We shall next wish to discover whether we
can definitely separate the two classes of mistakes in speech,
and how we can distinguish the example of the one
from a case of the other class. But at this
stage of the discussion we must also think of the
assertions of Want, who deals with the manifestations of speech

(11:33):
mistakes in his recent work on the development of language.
Psychic influences. According to Want, never lack in these as
well as in other phenomena.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
Related to them.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
The uninhibited stream of sound and word associations stimulated by
spoken sounds belongs here in the first place, as a
positive determinant. This is supported as a negative factor by
the relaxation or suppression of the influences of the will
which inhibit this stream, and by the active attention, which

(12:05):
is here a function of volition. Whether that play of
association manifests itself in the fact that a coming sound
is anticipated or a preceding sound reproduced, or whether a
familiar practiced sound becomes intercolated between others, or finally, whether
it manifests itself in the fact that altogether different sounds

(12:27):
associatively related to the spoken sounds act upon these. All
these questions designate only differences in the direction and at
most in the play of the occurring associations, but not
in the general nature of the same. In some cases,
it may be also doubtful to which form a certain
disturbance may be attributed, or whether it would not be

(12:50):
more correct to refer such disturbance to a concurrence of
many motives, following the principle of the complication of causes.
I consider these observations of want as absolutely justified and
very instructive. Perhaps we could emphasize with even greater firmness
than want, that the positive factor favoring mistakes and speech

(13:14):
the uninhibited stream of associations, and its negative the relaxation
of the inhibiting attention, regularly attains synchronous action, so that
both factors become only different determinants of the same process.
With the relaxation, or more unequivocally expressed, through this relaxation

(13:34):
of the inhibiting attention, the uninhibited stream of associations becomes active.
Among the examples of the mistakes in speech collected by me,
I can scarcely find one in which I would be
obliged to attribute the speech disturbance simply and solely to
what Want calls contact effect of sound. Almost invariably I

(13:56):
discover besides this a disturbing influence of something else outside
the intended speech. The disturbing element is either a single
unconscious thought which comes to lie through the speech blunder
and can only be brought to consciousness through a searching analysis,
or it is a more general psychic motive which directs
itself against the entire speech. Example a seeing my daughter

(14:21):
make an unpleasant face while biding into an apple, I
wish to quote the following couplet the ape. He is
a funny sight when in the apple he does bite.
But I began with the aple, which seems to be
a contamination of ape and apple compromise formation. Or it
may be also conceived as an anticipation of the prepared apple.

(14:44):
The true state of affairs, however, was this. I began
the quotation once before and made no mistake the first time.
I made the mistake only during the repetition, which was
necessary because my daughter, having been distracted from another side,
not listen to me. This repetition with the added impatience
to disburden myself of the sentence I must include in

(15:07):
the motivation of the speech blunder, which represented itself as
a function of condensation b my daughter said, I wrote
to missus Schlessinger. The woman's name was Schlessinger. This speech
blunder may depend on the tendency to facilitate articulation. I
must state, however, that this mistake was made by my

(15:28):
daughter a few moments after I had said Abel instead
of ape. Mistakes in speech are, in a great measure contagious.
A similar peculiarity was noticed by Merringer and Meyer in
the Forgetting of names. I know of no reason for
this psychic contagiousness. C I sat up like a pocket knife,
said a patient in the beginning of treatment, instead of

(15:51):
eye shut up. This suggests a difficulty of articulation, which
may serve as an excuse for the interchanging of sounds.
When he attention was called to the speech blunder, she
promptly replied, yes, that happened because you said earnest instead
of earnest. As a matter of fact, I received her
with the remark to day, we shall be in earnest.

(16:13):
Because it was the last hour before her discharge from treatment,
and I jokingly changed the word into earnest. In the
course of the hour, she repeatedly made mistakes in speech,
and I finally observed that it was not only because
she imitated me, but because she had a special reason
in her unconscious to linger at the word earnest Ernest

(16:35):
as a name. D a woman speaking about a game
invented by her children and called by them the man
in the box, said the manx in the box. I
could readily understand her mistake. It was while analyzing her dream,
in which her husband is depicted as very generous in
money matters, just the reverse of reality, that she made

(16:57):
this speech blunder. The day before, she had asked for
a new set of furs, which her husband denied her,
claiming that he could not afford to spend so much money.
She upbraided him for his stinginess for putting away so
much into the strong box, and mentioned a friend whose
husband has not nearly his income, and yet he presented
his wife with a mink coat for her birthday. The

(17:20):
mistake is now comprehensible. The word manx refers to the
minx which she longs for, and the box refers to
her husband's stinginess E. A similar mechanism is shown in
the mistake of another patient whose memory deserted her in
the midst of a long forgotten, childish reminiscence. Her memory

(17:40):
failed to inform her on what part of the body
the prying and lustful hand of another had touched her.
Soon thereafter, she visited one of her friends with whom
she discussed summer homes. Asked where her cottage in m
was located, she answered near the mountain loin instead of
the mountain Lane. F Another patient, whom I asked at

(18:02):
the end of her visit how her uncle was, answered
I don't know. I only see him now in FLAGRANTI.
The following day she said, I am really ashamed of
myself for having given you yesterday such a stupid answer. Naturally,
you must have thought me a very uneducated person who
always mistakes the meaning of foreign words, I wished to
say on passant. We did not know at the time

(18:24):
where she got the incorrectly used foreign words, But during
the same session she reproduced a reminiscence as a continuation
of the theme from the previous day, in which being
caught in FLAGRANTI played the principal part. The mistake of
the previous day had therefore anticipated the recollection, which at
that time had not yet become conscious. G In discussing

(18:48):
her summer plans, a patient said, I shall remain most
of this summer in Elberlaon. She noted her mistake and
asked me to analyze it. The associations to Elberlahn elicited
seashore on the Jersey Coast summer resort vacation traveling. This
recalled traveling in Europe with her cousin, a topic which

(19:08):
we had discussed the day before during the analysis of
a dream. The dream dealt with her dislike for this cousin,
and she admitted that it was mainly due to the
fact that the latter was the favorite of the man
whom they met together while traveling abroad. During the dream analysis,
she could not recall the name of the city in
which they met this man, and I did not make

(19:29):
any effort at the time to bring it to her consciousness,
as we were engrossed in a totally different problem. When
asked to focus her attention again on Elberlawn and reproduce
her associations. She said, it brings to mine Elba lawn,
lawn field, and Elberfield. Elberfeld was the lost name of

(19:50):
the city in Germany. Here the mistake served to bring
to consciousness, in a concealed manner, a memory which was
connected with a painful feeling.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
H A woman.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
Said to me, if you wish to buy a carpet,
go to merchants in Matthew Street. I repeated, Then at Matthew's,
I mean at Merchant's. It would seem that my repeating
of one name and place of the other was simply
the result of distraction. The woman's remark really did distract me,
as she turned my attention to something else, much more

(20:24):
vital to me than carpet. In Matthew Street stands the
house in which my wife lived as a bride. The
entrance to the house was in another street, and now
I noticed that I had forgotten its name, and could
only recall it through a roundabout method. The name Matthew,
which kept my attention, is thus a substitutive name for
the forgotten name of the street. It is more suitable

(20:46):
than the name Merchant for Matthew is exclusively the name
of a person, while Merchant is not. The Forgotten Street,
too bears the name of a person. I a patient
consulted me for the first time, and from her history
it became apparent that the cause of her nervousness was
largely an unhappy married life. Without any encouragement, she went

(21:08):
into details about her marital troubles. She had not lived
with her husband for about six months, and she saw
him last at the theater when she saw the play
Officer six O six. I called her attention to the mistake,
and she immediately corrected herself, saying that she meant to
say Officer six sixty six, the name of a recent

(21:29):
popular play. I decided to find out the reason for
the mistake, and as the patient came to me for
analytic treatment, I discovered that the immediate cause of the
rupture between herself and her husband was the disease which
is treated by.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
Six O six K.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
Before calling on me, a patient telephoned foreign appointment and
also wished to be informed about my consultation fee. He
was told that the first consultation was ten dollars. After
the examination was over, he again and asked what he
was to pay, and added, I don't like to owe
money to any one, specially to doctors. I prefer to
pay right away instead of pay, he said, play his

(22:10):
last voluntary remarks, and his mistake put me on guard.
But after a few more uncalled for remarks, he set
me at ease by taking money from his pocket. He
counted four paper dollars and was very chagrined and surprised
because he had no more money with him, and promised
to send me a check for the balance. I was

(22:31):
sure that his mistake betrayed him, that he was only
playing with me, but there was nothing to be done.
At the end of a few weeks, I sent him
a bill for the balance, and the letter was returned
to me by the post office authorities marked not found.
L Miss X spoke very warmly of mister Y, which
was rather strange, as before this she had always expressed

(22:54):
her indifference, not to say her contempt for him. On
being asked about this setting change of heart, she said,
I really never had anything against him. He was always
nice to me, but I never gave him the chance
to cultivate my acquaintance. She said, cuptivate. This neologism was
a contamination of cultivate and captivate and foretold the coming

(23:18):
betrothal m. An illustration of the mechanisms of contamination and
condensation will be found in the following lapsus Linguis. Speaking
of miss z, miss W depicted her as a very
straight laced person who was not given to levities, etc.
Miss X thereupon remarked, yes, that is a very characteristic description.

(23:42):
She always appealed to me as very straight braised. Here
the mistake resolved itself into straight laced and brazen faced,
which correspond to Miss W's opinion of miss z.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
N.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
I shall quote a number of examples from a paper
by my colleague doctor Steckel, which appeared in the Berlin
Tageblot in January nineteen o four entitled Unconscious Confessions. An
unpleasant trick of my unpleasant thoughts was revealed by the
following example. To begin with, I may state that in

(24:17):
my capacity as a physician, I never consider my remuneration,
but always keep in view the patient's interest. Only this
goes without saying. I was visiting a patient who was
convalescing from a serious illness. We had passed through hard
days and nights. I was happy to find her improved,
and I portrayed to her the pleasures of a sojourn

(24:38):
to Abasia, concluding with if, as I hope you will
not soon leave your bed. This obviously came from an unconscious,
selfish motive to be able to continue treating this wealthy patient,
a wish which is entirely foreign to my waking consciousness,
and which I would reject with indignation. Oh another example

(25:00):
from doctor Steckel, My wife engaged a French governess for
the afternoons, and, later, coming to a satisfactory agreement, wished
to retain her testimonials. The governess begged to be allowed
to keep them, saying je cherchancourt pouleis apres midi podon
pourle javant medi. She apparently intended to seek another place

(25:23):
which would perhaps offer more profitable arrangements, and intention which
she carried out p I was to give a lecture
to a woman. Her husband, upon whose requests this was done,
stood behind the door, listening. At the end of my sermonizing,
which had made a visible impression, I said goodbye, sir,

(25:44):
to the experienced person. I thus betrayed the fact that
the words were directed toward the husband that I had
spoken to oblige him. Q. Doctor Steccl reports about himself
that he had under treatment at the same time two
patients from Trieste, each of whom he always addressed incorrectly.
Good morning, mister Peloni, he would say to Ascoli, and

(26:07):
to Peloni, good morning, mister Ascoli. He was at first
inclined to attribute no deeper motive to this mistake, but
to explain it through a number of similarities in both persons. However,
he easily convinced himself that there the interchange of names
bespoke a sort of boast. That is, he was acquainting
each of his Italian patients with the fact that neither

(26:30):
was the only resident of Trieste who came to Vienna
in search of his medical advice. R. Two women stopped
in front of a drug store, and one said to
her companion, if you will wait a few moments, I'll
soon be back, But she said movements instead. She was
on her way to buy some castoria for her child s.

(26:52):
Mister L, who was fonder of being called on than
of calling, spoke to me through the telephone from a
nearby summer resort. He wanted to know when I could
pay him a visit. I reminded him that it was
his turn to visit me and called his attention to
the fact that as he was the happy possessor of
an automobile, it would be easier for him to call

(27:13):
on me. We were at different summer resorts, separated by
almost one half hour's railway trip. He gladly promised to
call and asked, how about Labor Day September first? Will
it be convenient for you? When I answered affirmatively, he
said very well, then put me down for election day November.

(27:33):
His mistake was quite plain. He likes to visit me,
but it was inconvenient to travel so far. In November
we would both be in the city. My analysis proved correct.
T A friend described to me a nervous patient and
wished to know whether I could benefit him. I remarked,
I believe that in time I can remove all his

(27:54):
symptoms by psychoanalysis because it is a durable case. Wishing
to say curable you, I repeatedly addressed my patient as
Missus Smith, her married daughter's name, when her real name
is Missus James. My attention having been called to it,
I soon discovered that I had another patient of the

(28:16):
same name who refused to pay for the treatment. Missus
Smith was also my patient and paid her bills promptly. V.
A lapsus lingue sometimes stands for a particular characteristic. A
young woman who is the domineering spirit in her home
said of her ailing husband that he had consulted the

(28:37):
doctor about a wholesome diet for himself, and then added,
the doctor said that diet has nothing to do with
his ailments, and that he can eat and drink what
I want. W I cannot omit this excellent and instructive example,
although according to my authority it is about twenty years old.
A lady once expressed herself in society. The very words

(29:01):
show that they were uttered with fervor and under the
pressure of a great many secret emotions. Yes, a woman
must be pretty if she is to please the men.
A man is much better off as long as he
has five straight limbs.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
He needs no more.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
This example affords us a good insight into the intimate
mechanisms of a mistake in speech. By means of condensation
and contamination, it is quite obvious that we have here
a fusion of two similar modes of expression, as long
as he has four straight limbs, or as long as
he has five senses, or the term straight may be

(29:38):
the common element of the two intended expressions. As long
as he has straight limbs, all five should be straight.
It may also be assumed that both modes of expression,
those of the five senses and those of the straight five,
have cooperated to introduce into the sentence about the straight limbs,
first a number, and then the mysterious five i've instead of.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
The simple four.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
But this fusion surely would not have succeeded if it
had not expressed good sense in the form resulting from
the mistake, if it had not expressed a cynical truth
which naturally could not be uttered unconcealed, coming as it
did from a woman. Finally, we shall not hesitate to
call attention to the fact that the woman's saying following

(30:23):
its wording could just as well be an excellent witticism
as a jocose speech blunder. It is simply a question
whether she uttered these words with conscious or unconscious intention.
The behavior of the speaker in the case certainly speaks
against the conscious intention, and thus excludes wit x. Owing
to similarity of material I add here another case of

(30:46):
speech blunder, the interpretation of which requires less skill. A
professor of anatomy strove to explain the nostril, which, as
is known, is a very difficult and atomical structure, to
his question whether where his audience grasped his ideas, he
received an affirmative reply. The professor, known for his self esteem,

(31:06):
thereupon remarked, I can hardly believe this, for the number
of people who understand the nostril, even in a city
of millions like Vienna, can be counted on a finger.
Pardon me, I meant to say, the fingers of a hand.
Why I am indebted to doctor alf Robotsk of Vienna
for calling my attention to two speech blunders from an

(31:28):
old French author, which I shall reproduce in the original.
There follows a rather lengthy story in French. In the
psychotherapeutic procedure which I employ in the solution and removal
of neurotic symptoms, I am often confronted with the task
of discovering from the accidental utterances and fancies of the

(31:49):
patient the thought contents, which, though striving for concealment, nevertheless
unintentionally betray themselves In doing this, the mistakes often perform
the most valuable service, as I can show through most
convincing and still most singular examples. For example, patients speak
of an aunt and later, without noting the mistake, call

(32:12):
her my mother, or designate a husband as a brother.
In this way they attract my attention to the fact
that they have identified these persons with each other, that
they have placed them in the same category, which for
their emotional life signifies the recurrence of the same type.
Or a young man of twenty years presents himself during
my office hours with these words, I am the father

(32:35):
of an n whom you have treated. Pardon me, I
mean the brother. Why he is four years older than I.
I understand through this mistake that he wishes to express that,
like the brother, he too is ill through the fault
of the father. Like his brother, he wishes to be cured,
but that the father is the one most in need
of treatment. At other times, an unusual arrangement of words

(32:57):
or a forced expression is sufficient to disclose in the
sad speech of the patient the participation of a repressed
thought having a different motive. Hence the course, as well
as in finer speech disturbances which may nevertheless be subsumed
as speech blunders. I find that it is not the
contact effects of the sound, but the thoughts outside the

(33:18):
intended speech, which determine the origins of the speech blunder,
and also suffice to explain the newly formed mistakes in speech.
I do not doubt the laws whereby the sounds produce
changes upon one another, but they alone do not appear
to me sufficiently forcible to mar the correct execution of speech.
In those cases which I have studied and investigated more closely,

(33:42):
they merely represent the performed mechanism, which is conveniently utilized
by a more remote psychic motive. The latter does not, however,
form a part of the sphere of influence of these
sound relations. In a large number of substitutions caused by
mistakes in talking, there is an entire absence of such
phonetic laws. In this respect, I am in full accord

(34:05):
with Want, who likewise assumes that the conditions underlying speech
blunders are complex and go far beyond the contact effects
of the sounds. If I accept as certain these more
remote psychic influences following one's expression, there is still nothing
to detain me from conceding also that in the accelerated

(34:26):
speech with a certain amount of diverted attention, the causes
of speech blunder may be easily limited to the definite
law of Merringer and Meyer. However, in a number of
examples gathered by these authors, a more complicated solution is
quite apparent. In some forms of speech blunders, we may
assume that the disturbing factor is the result of striking

(34:48):
against obscene words and meanings. The purposive disfigurement and distortion
of words and phrases, which is so popular with vulgar persons,
aims at nothing else but the employing of a harm
less motive as a reminder of the obscene And this
sport is so frequent that it would not be at
all remarkable if it appeared unintentionally and contrary.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
To the will.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
I trust that the readers will not depreciate the value
of these interpretations for which there is no proof, and
of these examples which I have myself collected and explained
by means of analysis. But if secretly I still cherish
the expectation that even the apparent simple cases of speech
blunder will be traced to a disturbance caused by a

(35:30):
half repressed idea outside of the intended context. I am
tempted to it by a noteworthy observation of Merringer. This
author asserts that it is remarkable that nobody wishes to
admit having made a mistake in speaking. There are many
intelligent and honest people who are offended if we tell
them that they made a mistake in speaking. I would

(35:52):
not risk making this assertion as general as does Meringer
using the term nobody. But the emotional trace which clings
to the demonstration of the mistake, which manifestly belongs to
the nature of shame.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
Has its significance.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
It may be classed with the anger displayed at the
inability to recall a forgotten name, and with the surprise
of the tenaciousness of an apparently indifferent memory, and it
invariably points to the participation of a motive in the
formation of the disturbance. The distorting of names amounts to
an insult when done intentionally, and could have the same

(36:27):
significance in a whole series of cases where it appears
as unintentional speech blunders. The person who, according to Meyer's report,
once said Freuder instead of Freud because shortly before he
pronounced the name Brewer, and who at another time spoke
of Frewer Broodian method, was certainly not particularly enthusiastic over

(36:49):
this method. Later under the mistakes in writing, I shall
report a case of name disfigurement, which certainly admits of
no other explanation as being element. In these cases there
is an intermingling of a criticism which must be omitted
because at the time being it does not correspond to
the intention of the speaker, or it may be just

(37:12):
the reverse. The substituted name or the adoption of the
strange name signifies an appreciation of the same. The identification
which is brought about by the mistake is equivalent to recognition,
which for the moment must remain in the background. And
experience of this kind from the school days is related
by doctor Farrenzi. While in my first year at college,

(37:34):
I was obliged to recite a poem before the whole class.
It was the first experience of the kind in my life,
but I was well prepared. As soon as I began
my recitation, I was dismayed at being disturbed by an
outburst of laughter. The professor later explained to me this
strange reception. I started by giving the title from the distance,

(37:55):
which was correct, but instead of giving the name of
the real author, I meant my own. The name of
the poet is Alexander Petofi. The identity of the first
name with my own favored the interchange of names. But
the real reason was surely the fact that I identified
myself at that time with the celebrated poet hero even consciously,

(38:18):
I entertained for him a love and respect which verged
on adoration. The whole ambition complex hides itself under this
faulty action. A similar identification was reported to me concerning
a young physician who timidly and reverently introduced himself to
the celebrated virtuo with the following words, I am doctor Virchow.

(38:40):
The surprised professor turned to him and asked, is your
name also Virchio. I do not know how the ambitious
young man justified his speech blunder, whether he thought of
the charming excuse that he imagined himself so insignificant next
to the big man that his own name slipped from him,
or whether he had the courage to admit that he
hoped that he too would some day be as great

(39:01):
as the man Virchow, and that the professor should therefore
not treat him into disparaging a manner. One or both
of these thoughts may have put the young man in
an embarrassing position during the introduction, owing to very personal motives.
I must leave it undecided whether a similar interpretation may
also apply in the case to be cited. At the

(39:23):
International Congress in Amsterdam in nineteen o seven, my theories
of hysteria were the subject of a lively discussion. One
of my most violent opponents, in his diatribe against me,
repeatedly made mistakes in speech in such a manner that
he put himself in my place and spoke in my name.
He said, for example, Brewer and I, as is well known,

(39:46):
have demonstrated et cetera, et cetera, when he wished to
say Brewer and Freud. The name of this opponent does
not show the slightest sound similarity to my own. From
this example, as well as from other cases of interchanging
names in speech blunders, we are reminded of the fact
that the speech blunder can fully forego the facility afforded

(40:06):
to it through similar sounds, and can achieve its purpose
if only supported in content by concealed relations. In other
and more significant cases, it is a self criticism, an
internal contradiction against one's own utterance, which causes the speech
blunder and even forces a contrasting substitution for the one intended.

(40:26):
We then observe with surprise how the wording of an
assertion removes the purpose of the same, and how the
error in speech lays bare the inner dishonesty.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
Here, the lapsis.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
Lingue becomes a mimicking form of expression, often indeed for
the expression of what one does not wish to say.
It is thus a means of self betrayal. Brill relates
I had recently been consulted by a woman who showed
many paranoid trends, and as she had no relatives who
could cooperate with me, I urged her to enter a

(40:57):
state hospital as a voluntary patient. She was quite willing
to do so, but on the following day she told
me that her friends, with whom she leased an apartment,
objected to her going to a hospital, as it would
interfere with their plans and so on. I lost patience
and said, there is no use listening to your friends
who know nothing about your mental condition. You are quite

(41:19):
incompetent to take care of your own affairs.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
I meant to say competent.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
Here the lapsis lingue expressed my true opinion, favored by chance.
The speech material often gives origin to examples of speech
blunders which served to bring about an overwhelming revelation of
a full comic effect, as shown by the following examples
reported by Brulle. A wealthy but not very generous host

(41:45):
invited his friends for an evening dance. Everything went well
until about eleven thirty p m. When there was an intermission,
presumably for supper. To the great disappointment of most of
the guests, there was no supper. Instead, they were with
thin sandwiches and lemonade. As it was close to election day,
the conversations centered on the different candidates, and as the

(42:08):
discussion grew warmer. One of the guests, an ardent admirer
of the Progressive Party candidate, remarked to the host, you
may say what you please about Teddy, but there is
one thing that can always be relied upon. He always
gives you a square meal. Wishing to say square deal,
the assembled guests burst into a roar of laughter to

(42:28):
the great embarrassment of the speaker and the host, who
fully understood each other. While writing a prescription for a
woman who was especially weighed down by the financial burden
of the treatment, I was interested to hear her say suddenly,
please do not give me big bills because I cannot
swallow them. Of course, she meant to say pills. The

(42:50):
following example illustrates a rather serious case of self betrayal
through a mistake in talking. Some accessory details justify full reproduction,
as first printed by doctor A. A.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Brill.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
While walking one night with Doctor Frank, we accidentally met
a colleague, Doctor p whom I had not seen for years,
and of whose private life I knew nothing. We were
naturally very pleased to meet again, and on my invitation,
he accompanied us to a cafe, where we spent about
two hours in pleasant conversation. To my question as to
whether he was married, he gave a negative answer and added,

(43:27):
why should a man like me marry? On leaving the cafe,
he suddenly turned to me and said, I should like
to know what you would do in a case like this.
I know a nurse who was named as correspondent in
a divorce case. The wife sued the husband for divorce
and named her as correspondent, and he got the divorce.

(43:47):
I had erupted him, saying you mean she got the divorce.
He immediately corrected himself, saying, yes, she got the divorce,
and continued to tell how the excitement of the trial
had affected this nurse to such an extent that she
became nervous and took to drink. He wanted me to
advise him how to treat her. As soon as I
had corrected his mistake, I asked him to explain it,

(44:09):
but as is usually the case, he was surprised at
my question. He wanted to know whether a person had
no right to make mistakes in talking. I explained to
him that there is a reason for every mistake, and
that if he had not told me that he was unmarried,
I would say that he was the hero of the
divorce case in question, and that the mistake showed that

(44:29):
he wished he had obtained the divorce instead of his wife,
so as not to be obliged to pay alimony and
to be permitted to marry again in New York State.
He stoutly denied my interpretation, but his emotional agitation followed
by loud laughter only strengthened my suspicions. To my appeal
that he should tell the truth for science sake, he said, unless.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
You wish me to lie, you must believe that I
was never.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
Married, and hence your psychoanalytic interpretation is all wrong. He however,
added that it was dangerous to be with a person
who paid attention to such little things. Then he suddenly
remembered that he had another appointment and left us. Both
Doctor Frank and I were convinced that the interpretation of
his lapsus lingui was correct, and I decided to corroborate

(45:17):
or disprove it by further investigation. The next day, I
found a neighbor and old friend of doctor P who
confirmed my interpretation in every particular. The divorce was granted
to doctor P's wife a few weeks before, and a
nurse was named as correspondent. A few weeks later, I
met doctor P and he told me that he was
thoroughly convinced of the Freudian mechanisms. The self betrayal is

(45:41):
just as plain in the following case reported by Otto Rank,
a father who was devoid of all patriotic feeling and
desirous of educating his children to be just as free
from this superfluous sentiment. Reproached his sons for participating in
a patriotic demonstration and rejected their reference to a similar
behavior of their uncle with these words, you are not

(46:03):
obliged to imitate him, why he is an idiot. The
astonished features of the children at their father's unusual tone
aroused him to the fact that he had made a mistake,
and he remarked apologetically, of course I wish to say patriot.
When such a speech blunder occurs in a serious squabble
and reverses the intended meaning of one of the disputants,

(46:25):
it at once puts him at a disadvantage with his adversary,
a disadvantage which the latter seldom fails to utilize. This
clearly shows that although people are unwilling to accept the
theory of my conception, and are not inclined to forego
the convenience that is connected with the tolerance of a
faulty action, they nevertheless interpret speech blunders and other faulty

(46:48):
acts in a manner similar to the one presented in
this book. The merriment and derision which are sure to
be evoked at the decisive moment. Through such linguistic mistakes,
speak conclusively against the generally accepted convention that such a
speech blunder is elapsus lingue and psychologically of no importance.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
It was no less a.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
Man than the German Chancellor who endeavored to save the
situation through such a protest, when the wording of his
defense of his emperor November nineteen o seven turned into
the opposite through speech blunder. Concerning the present a new
epic of Emperor Wilhelm second, I can only repeat what
I said a year ago, that it would be unfair

(47:30):
and unjust to speak of a coterie of responsible advisers
around our emperor loud calls irresponsible to speak of irresponsible advisors.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
Pardon elapsus lingue.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
A nice example of speech blunder, which aims not so
much at the betrayal of the speaker as that the
enlightenment of the listener outside the scene, is found in
Wallenstein Pocolomini, Act one, Scene five, and shows us that
the poet who here uses this means is well versed
in the mechanism and intent of speech blunders. In the

(48:06):
preceding scene, Max Pocolomini was passionately in favor of the
ducal party, and was enthusiastic about the blessings of the piece,
which became known to him. In the course of a journey.
While accompanying Wallenstein's daughter to the encampment, he leaves his
father and the court ambassador Questenberg in great consternation. The

(48:27):
scene proceeds as follows Questenberg, whoe unto us are matters? Thus, friends,
should we allow him to go there with the false
opinion and not recall him at once? In order to
open his eyes instantly? Octavio, rousing himself from profound meditation,
he has already opened mine, and I see more than

(48:47):
pleases me. Questenberg, What is it, friend, Octavio, a curse
on that journey?

Speaker 2 (48:54):
Questenberg? Why what is it? Octavio?

Speaker 1 (48:58):
Come, I must immediate follow the unlucky trail, must see
with my own eyes. Come whish is to lead him away? Questenberg?
What is the matter where Octavio? Urging to her?

Speaker 2 (49:12):
Questenberg to Octavio corrects himself to the Duke, let us go.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
The slight speech blunder to her in place of to him,
is meant to betray to us the fact that the
father has seen through his son's motive for espousing the
other cause, while the courtier complains that he speaks to
him falltogether in riddles. Another example wherein a poet makes
use of a speech blunder was discovered by Otto Rank

(49:41):
and Shakespeare. I quote Rank's report from Zentroblat for Psychoanalyse
one three. A poetic speech blunder very delicately motivated and
technically remarkably utilized, which, like the one pointed out by
Freud in Wallenstein, not only shows that poets know the
mechanism and sense of this error, but also presupposes an

(50:04):
understanding of it on the part of the hearer can
be found in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, Act three, Scene two.
By the will of her father, Portia was bound to
select a husband through a lottery. She escaped all her
distasteful suitors by lucky chance. When she finally found in Bosinnio,
the suitor after her own heart, she had cause to

(50:26):
fear lest he too should draw the unlucky lottery. In
the scene, she would like to tell him that even
if he chose the wrong casket, he might nevertheless be
sure of love, But she is hampered by her vow
In this mental conflict. The poet uses these words in
her mouth, which were directed to the welcome suitor. There
is something, tells me, but it is not love. I

(50:50):
would not lose you, and you know yourself. Hate counsels
not in such a quality. But lest you should not
understand me well, And yet a maiden hath no tongue,
but thought I would detain you here some month or
two before you venture for me. I could teach you
how to choose right. But then I am forsworn, so

(51:10):
will I never be?

Speaker 2 (51:12):
So may you miss me?

Speaker 1 (51:13):
But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin
that I had been forsworn. Be shrew your eyes. They
have overlooked me and divided me. One half of me
is yours, the other half yours mine own, I would say,
But if mine.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
Then yours, and so all yours.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
Just the very thing which she would like to hint
to him gently, because really she would keep it from him,
namely that even before the choice, she is wholly his,
that she loves him. The poet, with admirable psychologic sensitiveness,
allows to come to the surface in the speech blunder.
It is through this artifice that he manages to allay

(51:56):
the intolerable uncertainty of the lover, as well as the
like contention of the hearer concerning the outcome of the choice.
The interest merited by the confirmation of our conception of
speech blunders through the great poets justifies the citation of
a third example, which was reported by doctor E.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
Jones.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
Our great novelist, George Meredith in his masterpiece The Egoist,
shows an even finer understanding of the mechanism. The plot
of the novel is shortly as follows. Sir Willoughby pattern,
an aristocrat greatly admired by his circle, becomes engaged to
Miss Constantia Durham. She discovers in him an intense egoism

(52:37):
which he skillfully conceals from the world, and to escape
the marriage, she elopes with the Captain Oxford. Some years later,
Patterne becomes engaged to a Miss Clara Middleton, and most
of the book is taken up with a detailed description
of the conflict that arises in her mind on also
discovering his egotism. External circumstances in her conception of an

(53:00):
hold her to her pledge, while he becomes more and
more distasteful in her eyes. She partly confided in her
cousin and secretary, Vernon Whitford, the man whom she ultimately marries,
but from a mixture of motives he stands aloof. In
the soliloquy, Clara speaks as follows, if some noble gentleman
could see me as I am, and not disdain to

(53:23):
aid me, Oh to be caught out of this prison
of thorns and brambles. I cannot tear my own way out.
I am a coward. A beckoning of a finger would
change me. I believe I could fly, bleeding and through
hootings to a comrade. Constantia met a soldier. Perhaps she
prayed and her prayer was answered. She did ill, But

(53:44):
oh how I love her for it. His name was
Harry Oxford.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
She did not waver. She cut the links.

Speaker 1 (53:50):
She signed herself over, O brave girl.

Speaker 2 (53:53):
What do you think of me? But I have no
Harry Whitford. I am alone.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
The sudden consciousness that she had put another name for
Oxford struck her a buffet, drowning her in Crimson. The
fact that both men's names end in Ford evidently renders
the confounding of them more easy, and would by many
be regarded as an adequate cause for this, but the
real underlying motive for it is plainly indicated by the author.

(54:20):
In another passage, the same lapses occurs and is followed
by a hesitation and change of subject that one is
familiar with in psychoanalysis when a half conscious complex is touched.
Sir Willoughby patronizingly says to Whitford, false alarm. The resolution
to do anything unaccustomed is quite beyond poor old Vernon.

(54:41):
Clara replies, But if mister Oxford Whitford, your swans coming
sailing up the lake, how beautiful they are when they
are indignant?

Speaker 2 (54:50):
I was going to ask you.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
Surely, men witnessing a marked admiration for someone else will
naturally be discouraged. Sir Willoughby stiffened with sudden enlightenment. And
still another passage, Clara by another lapses, betrays her secret
wish that she was on a more intimate footing with
Vernon Whitford. Speaking to a boyfriend, she says, tell mister Vernon,

(55:13):
tell mister Whitford. The conception of speech blunders here defended
can be readily verified.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
In the smallest details.

Speaker 1 (55:21):
I have been able to demonstrate repeatedly that the most
insignificant and most natural cases of speech blunders have their
good sense and admit of the same interpretation as the
most striking examples. A patient who, contrary to my wishes
but with firm personal motives, decided upon a short trip
to Budapest, justified herself by saying that she was going

(55:43):
for only three days, But she blundered said only three weeks.
She betrayed her secret, feeling that to spite me, she
preferred spending three weeks to three days in that society,
which I considered unfit for her. One evening, wishing to
excuse myself for not having called for my wife at
the theater, I said I was at the theater at
ten minutes after ten. I was corrected, you mean to

(56:06):
say ten o'clock. Naturally, I wanted to say before ten.
After ten would certainly be no excuse. I had been
told that the theater program read finished before ten o'clock.
When we arrived at the theater, I found the foyer
dark and the theater empty. Evidently the performance was over earlier,
and my wife.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
Did not wait for me.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
When I looked at the clock, it still wanted five
minutes to ten. I determined to make my case more
favorable at home and say that it was ten minutes
to ten. Unfortunately, the speech blunder spoiled the intent and
laid bare my dishonesty, in which I acknowledged more than
there really was to confess. This leads to those speech

(56:47):
disturbances which can no longer be described as speech blunders,
for they do not injure the individual word, but affect
the rhythm and execution of the entire speech, as for example,
the stammer and stuttering of embarrassment. But here, as in
the former cases, it is the inner conflict that is
betrayed to us through the disturbance in speech. I really

(57:10):
do not believe that anyone will make mistakes in talking
in an audience with his majesty, in a serious love declaration,
or in defending one's name and honor before a jury.
In short, people make no mistakes when they are all
there as the saying goes. Even in criticizing an author's style,

(57:30):
we are loud and accustomed to follow the principle of explanation,
which we cannot miss in the origin of a single
speech blunder. A clear and unequivocal manner of writing shows
us that here the author is in harmony with himself.
But where we find a forced and involved expression aiming
at more than the one target as appropriately expressed, we

(57:52):
can thereby recognize the participation of an unfinished and complicated thought,
or we can hear through it the stifled voice of
the author's self criticism.

Speaker 2 (58:04):
End of section five.