Oops! How's That Again

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Short Summary :

This essay is about a very important aspect of our daily life. That is verbal errors. Verbal errors are very common in our daily lives. It is a bitter reality of human beings that they make mistakes when they speak.

Human beings often make mistake knowingly and unknowingly when they speak. After making a mistake they also apologize for it. From the uneducated person to highly intellectual and educated, scholar, different verbal mistakes are made according to their level.

This essay describes the verbal errors people make while speaking and the reasons behind them. The writer has divided such errors into five categories (or groups). They are as follows:

Tongue Slips .
Mistranslations
Bloopers (Public Blunders)
Spoonerisms
Fauxpas

Tongue Slips:

Tongue slips are the most common types of verbal errors. They occur when a speaker means to say one thing but happens to say something else. They are usual and can take place all the times. They create an embarrassing effect on both the speaker and the listener.

A good example of it was made by a businessman Peter Balfour in a dinner party where he wished just engaged Prince Charles a long life and conjugal happiness with Lady Jane. But in fact, Prince Charles was engaged to Lady Diana and Lady Jane was his former beloved.

Mistranslations: Mistranslations account for a great share of verbal errors. Mostly such mistakes take place when people try to translate things from one language to another language.

He or she either distorts or completely violates the real meaning given by the original text. The writer has given a very funny example of such a mistake. It is the example of the slogan “Come alive with Pepsi.”

Someone tried to translate this sentence into

German language. He translated it as : “come alive

out of the grave with Pepsi”. Another person

translated it as: “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave” .

(A very nice example of Mistranslation from Nepali language to English)

There may be a misunderstanding between speaker and the listener. Sometimes such mistranslations might bring a violent situation.

Blooper: The next type of verbal error is blooper. A blooper is a public blunder. It is very embarrassing error. Mostly such mistakes are on the radio or television or perhaps in the public speeches.

For example, a radio announcer called ‘Herbert Hoover’ as ‘Hoobert Heever’ .Another example is ‘Indigo China’ for ‘Indo China’. Bloopers are the low line of verbal errors and consist of a large number of toilet jokes.

Spoonerism:

(What is Spoonerism?)

The next type of verbal error is spoonerism. It is the transposition of initial or other sounds by mistake. They are a kind of sound confusion.

The name spoonerism has come from a teacher, 'Spooner'. Once he scolded one of his students in the following way: ‘You have hissed all my mystery lectures. In fact you tasted the whole worm and must leave by the first town drain.”

In fact the teacher wanted to say the following

‘You have missed all my history lectures. In fact you have wasted the whole term and must leave by the first down train’. Another example of spoonerism is : ‘Our queer dean ‘ in the place of ‘Our dear queen’.

(Oops! I am wrong again !!)

Faux Pas:

(What is Faux pas)

The last type of verbal mistake is faux pas. Such mistakes are tactless mistakes. One very good example of this type is the welcome of the Indian president by saying :’Who are you?’ in the place of saying ‘How are you?’

(Faux pas)

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Some Question Answers :

Question 1: What are the different types of verbal mistakes mentioned by the writer?

/Or/ Into what groups has Rosenblatt organized his numerous examples of verbal missteps?

Answer: Please read the summary of this essay.

Question 2 : Why do people laugh at such mistakes?

Answer: The writer thinks that mostly our daily conversations are conventional. Such conventional conversations are very boring and predictable. They are very monotonous. In such a situation verbal mistake comes with a deviation from the monotony. This deviation serves as comic purpose and a delightful relief.

Sometimes the verbal errors reveal the hidden mean motives also. The discovery of meanness causes laughter in the listeners. It is also enjoyable to watch the face of the speaker who has made such a mistake.

Question 3: What are the different reasons behind such verbal mistakes?

Answer: There are several reasons behind such verbal mistakes. Some are linguistic and some are psychological reasons.

One reason of it is that before expressing a thought, our brain sends it into a grammatical frame work. Sometimes due to some mistake in the grammatical framework, such mistakes take place.

Another reason is that the speaker expresses his/her inner desire in such tongue slips.

Next reason might be that there are some incorrect words which exist in our minds with the correct ones. They are known as Dream Pairs. While speaking sometimes wrong words come out of the mouth instead of the right words.

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https://www.slideshare.net/SudipBagchi4/oops-how-is-that-again-converted