Interpretation of a Case of Miswriting

The importance Freud himself ascribes to the problem of the everyday error led him to refer to the study of errors of everyday life and of dreams as “the introduction to psychoanalysis.” (1) He includes among such errors the “slip of the tongue,” as when anyone wishes to say a certain thing but uses the wrong word, or when the same sort of mistake is made in writing “slip of the pen.” Such errors are compromise formations. A tendency which is debarred from expression asserts itself and gains utterance either by altering the expression of the permitted intention, or by mingling with it, or actually setting itself in place of it. The mistake in written communication is analogous to the slip of the tongue in verbal communication. Due to the underlying, opposing, affect-laden countercur-rents, the resulting compromise formation or mistake reveals a hidden meaning, a secondary significance, an ambiguity.

Spoonerisms and unintentional puns are common examples of such mistakes, and their interpretation is frequently plain. No one, for instance, would doubt that the curate who speaks of “feeling within us the half-warmed fish” is in reality preoccupied during his sermon by thoughts of food.