The slip is a mistake made orally or in writing. It is characterized by saying or writing something other than what we intended to express. One word is replaced by another, and this, in an uncontrolled way. Does the slip reveal a repressed desire or is it a language error? Specialists in psychoanalysis and language have looked into the question.

The word “slip” comes from the Latin name “labi” which originally means “slip, trip“And which was then translated as”make a mistake”. Surprising for the audience who hears it, the slip often triggers laughter to alleviate the embarrassment of its author, or a wary silence when the speaker manages to catch up quickly. This is an unintentional error most of the time corrected quickly after being pronounced.

Certain lapses, expressed by politicians, have become famous. We remember the naughty slip of the tongue of the former Minister of Justice, Rachida Dati, who pronounced the word “fellatio” instead of “inflation” in the program Sunday + in 2010. She repeats the following year with once again a sexual slip. The former Minister of Justice uses the word “dildo” instead of “code”. 

The term “slip” first appeared in 1895 in an empirical study by Austrian linguist Rudolf Meringer and psychologist Carl Mayer. It was then taken up by Freud in 1901 in Psychopathology of everyday life. If the first speak of language errors to explain the production of slip, Sigmund Freud sees in the slip the manifestation of our subversive unconscious.

For linguists, the slip can be explained from a cognitive point of view. During language learning, we learn words that can be phonetically similar. Normally, our brain automatically rejects words close to the one we want to say or write, just before it is spoken or written. But sometimes this rejection does not happen as quickly as expected and our tongues fork out to say the wrong word. This is the slip.

Moreover, it occurs more often in people who are tired or poorly concentrated, when the brain is less alert. It was at the end of the 19th century that the linguist Rudolf Meringer explained in a precise way the language mechanisms that come into play in the occurrence of slips. According to him, the production of language takes place in three stages: conceptualization, formulation and articulation. Conceptualization is, for our brain, putting concepts on words and making connections between them. For this language specialist, the slip occurs during formulation and articulation. The individual who produces a slip does not respect the linear order that he must pronounce. His mouth and his tongue do not express what he thinks, because at the last moment our brain decides not to respect the initial sequence.

Often, slip-ups are characterized by permutation of consonants. The consonant that starts the first syllable is replaced by the consonant of the second syllable. Our brain anticipates what to say. 

Slips can also be the consequence of contaminations :

• Two similar words merge in the mind so that in the end there is only one spoken, and it is the one that the speaker just did not want to express.
• Two similar words merge to give a new word without any meaning.
• Two words that follow each other in the sentence merge.
• A word (or part of it) heard before, is integrated into the spoken word.

The cognitive explanation is opposed by the psychoanalytic explanation developed by Freud in 1901 in Psychopathology of everyday life. For him, the slip is in fact a failed act: it expresses in an unconscious way what the individual kept in him and did not want to share with his audience, but that he wanted deeply. The slip would therefore be a repressed thought or desire. Through this psychoanalytic demonstration, Freud shows that our impulses are stronger than our consciousness since they manage to thwart it via slip-ups. The famous Austrian neurologist also insists that this repressed urge always has a sexual or hostile aspect (or both). The slip could therefore be indicative of the unacknowledged intentions of the speaker. This explains the shame it generates in him and the embarrassment or laughter that it triggers in his audience. If our unconscious manages to overcome the barrier set up by our consciousness to block our shameful thoughts, it is because an external factor, such as fatigue or stress, allows it.

You will understand, to avoid slips, stay alert!