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{{Short description|Involuntary mistake made while writing or speaking}}
{{about|the term in philology|the hacker group|Lapsus$}}
In [[philology]], a '''lapsus''' ([[Latin]] for "lapse, slip, error") is an involuntary mistake made while writing or speaking.<ref>D. C. Greetham, ''Scholarly Editing'' (1995)p. 452</ref>

==Investigations==
In 1895 an investigation into verbal slips was undertaken by a philologist and a psychologist, [[Rudolf Meringer]] and [[Karl Meyer (psychologist)|Karl Mayer]], who collected many examples and divided them into separate types.<ref>S. Freud, ''Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis'' (PFL 1) p. 58</ref>

===Psychoanalysis===
Freud was to become interested in such mistakes from 1897 onwards, developing an interpretation of slips in terms of their unconscious meaning.<ref>Peter Gay, ''Freud: A Life for our Time'' (1989) p. 125</ref> Subsequently, followers of his like [[Ernest Jones]] developed the theme of lapsus in connection with writing, typing, and misprints.<ref>D. C. Greetham, ''Theories of the Text'' (1999) p. 249-252</ref>

According to [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]]'s early [[psychoanalytic theory]], a lapsus represents a bungled act that hides an [[Unconscious mind|unconscious]] desire: “the phenomena can be traced back to incompletely suppressed psychical material...pushed away by consciousness”.<ref>Freud, quoted in A. Phillips, ''On Flirtation'' (1994) p. 12</ref>

[[Jacques Lacan]] would thoroughly endorse the Freudian interpretation of unconscious motivation in the slip, arguing that “in the ''lapsus'' it is...clear that every unsuccessful act is a successful, not to say 'well-turned', discourse”.<ref>Jacques Lacan, ''Ecrits: A Selection'' (1997) p. 58</ref>

In the seventies [[Sebastiano Timpanaro]] would controversially take up the question again, by offering a mechanistic explanation of all such slips, in opposition to Freud's theories.<ref>Gay, p. 755</ref>

==Types of lapsus==

In literature, a number of different types of lapsus are named depending on context:<ref>Freud, p. 95</ref>
* ''[[Speech error|lapsus linguae]]'' (pl. same): slip of the tongue 
* ''[[wikt:lapsus calami|lapsus calami]]'': slip of the pen<ref>B. A. Garner, ''Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage'' (1995) p. 499</ref>
** ''[[wikt:lapsus manus|lapsus manus]]'': slip of the hand; a synonym for ''lapsus calami''
**''lapsus clavis'': slip of the key (implying a [[typewriter]] or [[computer keyboard]])
* ''[[wikt:lapsus memoriae|lapsus memoriae]]'': slip of memory

=== Types of slips of the tongue ===
Slips of the tongue can happen on any level:
*[[Syntax|Syntactic]] — "is" instead of "was".{{clarify|This implies that the present tense (“is”) is always a syntactic slip of the tongue, which <del>is</del> <ins>was</ins> absurd.|date=May 2024}}
*[[Phrasal]] slips of tongue — "I'll explain this tornado later".{{Clarify|reason=What would the phrase have been if said correctly?|date=February 2021}}
*[[Lexicology|Lexical]]/[[semantic]] — "moon full" instead of "full moon".
*[[Morphology (linguistics)|Morphological]] level — "working'''s''' paper".{{Clarify|reason=What would the phrase have been if said correctly?|date=February 2021}}
*[[Phonological]] (sound slips) — "flow snurries" instead of "snow flurries".

Each of these five types of error may take various forms:
*Anticipation: An early item is corrupted by an element belonging to a later one,<ref>Freud, p. 58</ref> thus "reading list" — "'''l'''eading list"
*Perseveration or post-sonance: A later item is corrupted by an element belonging to an earlier one<ref>Greetham, ''Theories'' p. 246</ref> Thus "'''w'''aking rabbits" — "waking '''w'''abbits".
*Deletion: An element is lost, thus "same s'''t'''ate" — "same sate"
*Shift or [[spoonerism]]: Moving a letter, thus "b'''l'''ack foxes" — "back f'''l'''oxes"
*Haplology<ref>This is a different phenomenon from that described in the main article on [[Haplology|haplologies]], which involves the removal of identical consecutive syllables.</ref> or fusion: Half one word and half the other, thus "stummy" instead of "stomach or tummy"<ref>Freud, p. 58-9</ref>
*[[Pun]]<ref>B. M. Dupriez, ''Dictionary of Literary Devices'' (1991) p. 250</ref>

==Motivation==
Meringer and Mayer highlighted the role of familiar associations and similarities of words and sounds in producing the lapsus. Freud objected that such factors did not cause but only "''favour'' slips of the tongue...in the immense majority of cases my speech is not disturbed by the circumstance that the words I am using recall others with a similar sound...or that familiar associations branch off from them (emphasis copied from original)".<ref>Freud, p. 73</ref>

Timpanaro later reignited the debate,<ref>P. Barrotta et al, ''Freud and Italian Culture'' (2009) p. 182</ref> by maintaining that any given slip can always be explained mechanically without a need for deeper motivation.<ref>Greetham, ''Theories'' p. 257-8</ref>

[[J. L. Austin]] had independently seen slips not as revealing a particular complex, but as an ineluctable feature of the human condition, necessitating a continual preparation for excuses and remedial work.<ref>[[Stanley Cavell]], ''Little Did I Know'' (2010) p. 479</ref>

==See also==
{{Columns-list|colwidth=22em|
*[[Dittography]]
*[[Freudian slip]]
*[[Ivan Pavlov]]
*[[Latinism]]
*[[Speech error]]
*[[Plot hole]] 
}}

==References==
{{Reflist|2|}}

==Further reading==
* Sigmund Freud, ''The Psychopathology of Everyday Life'' (1965 [1901])
* Jonathan Goldberg, ''Writing Matter'' (1990)
* [[Sebastiano Timpanaro]], ''The Freudian Slip'' (1976) (translation of ''Il lapsus freudiano: psicanalisi e critica testuale'', 1974)
* John Austin, 'A Plea for Excuses', in ''Philosophical Papers'' (1961)

==External links==
* {{wiktionary-inline}}

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[[Category:Psychoanalytic terminology]]
[[Category:Freudian psychology]]
[[Category:Speech error]]