i22 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



means certain, to become aware of the lapse; 3 but when it has the glib 

 sound or semblance of sense, it passes unnoticed before the sensory 

 sentinel. The much-cited scholar who spoke of the half-warmed fish 

 that one feels in one's breast (half-formed wish) perhaps reached the 

 acme of sensible sounding absurdity. On the same plane is the state- 

 ment that We have a very queer dean (a very dear Queen); while the 

 speaker who converted little ditches branching off into little 07-itches 

 dancing off, departed from strict linguistic interchange by the logical 

 attractions of dancing (it should have been dandling). 



It is to be noted that most of these lapses are peculiar to speech 

 (vocal utterance), because this is the more fluent, more automatic 

 expression; and further that these speech-lapses are apt to be favored 

 by any slight indisposition or fatigue or excitement. One collector of 

 such linguistic frailties notes that they occur more frequently at the 

 end of an evening's conversation than at the beginning. Certain of 

 the lapses are characteristically oral; a smaller class graphic; still 

 others common to both forms of expression; while even in that half- 

 innervated process of reading to one's self, or formulating one's thought 

 in words (as in preparing for an address) do these lapses become cog- 

 nizable to the semi-articulate consciousness. The lapses of writing 

 are both less frequent and simpler than those of speech, because in 

 writing we proceed by smaller units, and write as a rule with more alert 

 attention than we give to casual talk or even to careful utterance. 

 Graphic lapses will accordingly be apt to occur in rapid and absorbed 

 composition in which thought runs well ahead of execution, or will 

 occur in ordinary writing and be slight in character. 4 By virtue of 

 the same relations, the more poised temperaments and deliberate 

 speakers on the one hand, and those whose expertness in speech does 

 not permit them so readily to commit execution to subconscious guid- 

 ance (children and the uncultivated) on the other, will not be as sub- 

 ject to speech-lapses as the more fluent and venturesome speakers. 

 Lapses of speech, like lapses of conduct, are favored by that inatten- 

 tion which we are disposed to give to ingrained and well-habituated 

 activities. 



Interrupting the taking of testimony at this point to interpret the 

 evidence, it is obvious that these lapses follow definite trends, illustra- 

 tive of our psycho-linguistic mechanism. Both anticipated and per- 



3 This suggests the placing of the wrong arm first into the sleeve, with a 

 consequent awkward feeling; or the exchange of hats without observing the ab- 

 sence of the familiar recognition-marks. 



4 The typewriting manipulations have an appreciably different status from 

 those of writing, notably in the number of separate mechanisms (fingers) that 

 each may participate in the reaction; yet typewriter lapses are common, and 

 in part conform to the linguistic types. Letter interchange is decidedly the 

 most frequent slip (rt for tr, oi for io, etc.), though the other formulae also 

 apply. 



