In a previous issue of this Review,3 as a kind of supplemental footnote to Abraham's study on premature ejaculation,1 I described very briefly the relation between tipping and impotence. Tipping, I pointed out, is a confession of guilt for Oedipal desires toward the mother-waiter who serves the child. Since then, I have run across two interesting examples of this connection.

One day in 18th Century England, so the story goes, a waiter hung a small wooden money box near the dining room entrance. On this box he painted the words “To Insure Promptness” as a suggestion to entering guests who wanted speedy service. Similar collection boxes went up in other hostelries and soon the motto, “To Insure Promptness,” was so familiar that the wording was reduced to “T.I.P.” Before long, the “T.I.P. Box” was commonly referred to as the “tip box.” This, as legend has it, is one of the etymological sources of “tip.”4