a-general-introduction-to-psychoanalysis-sigmund-freud

discussed later. Otherwise you convict yourself of an error in logic by which
you smoothly conjure away the problem under discussion; or "beg the
question," as it is called in English.
In other cases in which the speaker has not said the exact opposite of what
he intended, the slip may nevertheless express an antithetical meaning. "I am
not inclined to appreciate the merits of my predecessor." "Inclined" is not the
opposite of "in a position to," but it is an open betrayal of intent in sharpest
contradiction to the attempt to cope gracefully with the situation which the
speaker is supposed to meet.
In still other cases the slip simply adds a second meaning to the one
intended. The sentence then sounds like a contradiction, an abbreviation, a
condensation of several sentences. Thus the lady of energetic disposition, "He
may eat and drink whatever I please." The real meaning of this abbreviation
is as though the lady had said, "He may eat and drink whatever he pleases.
But what does it matter what he pleases! It is I who do the pleasing." Slips of
the tongue often give the impression of such an abbreviation. For example,
the anatomy professor, after his lecture on the human nostril, asks whether
the class has thoroughly understood, and after a unanimous answer in the
affirmative, goes on to say: "I can hardly believe that is so, since the people
who understand the human nostril can, even in a city of millions, be counted
on one finger—I mean, on the fingers of one hand." The abbreviated
sentence here also has its meaning: it expresses the idea that there is only
one person who thoroughly understands the subject.
In contrast to these groups of cases are those in which the error does not
itself express its meaning, in which the slip of the tongue does not in itself
convey anything intelligible; cases, therefore, which are in sharpest opposition
to our expectations. If anyone, through a slip of the tongue, distorts a proper
name, or puts together an unusual combination of syllables, then this very
common occurrence seems already to have decided in the negative the
question of whether all errors contain a meaning. Yet closer inspection of
these examples discloses the fact that an understanding of such a distortion is
easily possible, indeed, that the difference between these unintelligible cases
and the previous comprehensible ones is not so very great.
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