Oops!!!!! That was a slip of the tongue!!!!!

Slip of the tongue, as we all know is an accidental and trivial mistake made while speaking. You might have heard some people calling this slip of the tongue as Freudian Slip. Have you ever wondered why it is called so? Why Freud, the father of Psychology is associated with slip of the tongue?


Sigmund Freud was the first person to pay serious attention to slips of the tongue as psychological data. The Freudian slip is named after Sigmund Freud, who described the phenomenon he called Fehlleistung (literally meaning "faulty action" in German), but termed as parapraxis ( meaning "other action" in English). Freud believed that though slip of the tongue is a physical reaction, it is caused by the unconscious mind. Nothing in mental life is accidental according to Freud; everything is determined by deeper motivations. Freud believed that verbal slips come from repressed desires. But it’s not always right to believe that all the slips are Freudian slips and reveal the presence of suppressed impulses or intentions. In Dr. Freud's own words, a suppression of a previous intention to say something is the indispensable condition for the occurrence of slips of the tongue.

Different levels:

Freud and other psychoanalysts would assert that this suppression of intent or impulse, which they made the cornerstone of all slips of the tongue, could operate at three different levels.
Ø On level one the suppression could be conscious and deliberate.
Ø On level two, the suppression can be identified afterward by the person who made the slip but was not intended beforehand.
Ø At the deepest level the person absolutely denies the suppression.

For Freudians, it really doesn't matter what level the person who has made a slip of the tongue is operating at. For them in all cases the slip is the result of the conflict between two forces--- the underlying, unacceptable need and the tendency to keep it hidden. There are 2 kinds of slips-single errors and blends. E.g. for single errors- expect (except). E.g. for blend – tummach (tummy + stomach) The enormous quantity of slips analyzed in psychopathology, many of which are banal or apparently trivial, would seem to indicate that Freud felt almost any seemingly tiny slip or hesitation would respond to analysis.

Alternative explanations:

There are evidences to refute this psychoanalytical view; and it can be convincingly asserted that all slips of the tongue are not Freudian, and that there are other cognitive reasons to explain these verbal slips. Some explanations are as follows:

Ø Malapropisms: Some parts of the word are stored more prominently than the others. 80% of the word beginnings and 70% of the word endings are identical to the target word. So, there are tendencies for the replacement of the words. E.g.: Expect replaced for Except.

Ø Semantic slips: Words with similar meaning are stored together in our memory. While speaking some of the words tend to do the mistake of using a close coordinate of the target word. E.g.: Table- Chair.


Some sayings:

Ø Where tongue slips, it speaks the truth.
Ø Be careful what you say, one slip of the tongue and we're all in trouble.
Ø Better to stumble than make a slip of the tongue.