A long polemic against Freud's theory of lapses in every-day life. The author criticises a number of examples published in the psycho-analytical literature and attempts to show that they can be explained otherwise on purely phonetic grounds, as was done in the days before Freud's work. He says that in the psycho-analysis of such lapses 'emphasis is laid on irrelevant details, while essential facts are ignored'. This is reversing the situation with a vengeance. I take this opportunity of putting an end to a controversy which seems to have been raging among American writers about two supposed lapses of my own: Mr. Roback's explanation about the word 'calligraphy' is correct, while that about the word 'broschure' is wrong.