Definition and Examples of Slips of the Tongue

Definition and Examples of Slips of the Tongue A slip of the tongue is a mistake in speaking, usually trivial, sometimes amusing. Also called  lapsus linguae or tongue-slip. As David Crystal has noted, studies of tongue-slips have revealed a great deal about the neuropsychological processes that underlie speech (The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, 2010). EtymologyA translation of the Latin, lapsus linguae, cited by John Dryden in 1667. Examples and Observations [British Prime Minister]  David Cameron  has accidentally described the 7 May election as career-defining when he meant country-defining, his third gaffe of recent days.  His mistake on Friday was immediately jumped on by his opponents as unintentionally revealing that he was more concerned about his own job prospects than the future of the UK.  It is likely that the prime minister will step down as Tory leader if he is voted out of Downing Street.This is a real career-defining . . . country-defining election that we face in less than a week’s time, he told an audience at the headquarters of Asda in Leeds.(Rowena Mason, Cameron Mocked After Describing Election as Career-Defining.  The Guardian, May 1, 2015)In an apparent slip of the tongue on the campaign trail yesterday, Mitt Romney mixed up the names of Al Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.The former Massachusetts governor was criticizing Democrats on foreign policy when he said, according to the Associated Press, Actually, just look at what Osam- Barack Obama- said just yesterday. Barack Obama, calling on radicals, jihadists of all different types, to come together in Iraq. That is the battlefield. . . . Its almost as if the Democratic contenders for president are living in fantasyland. . . .Romney, who was speaking at a Chamber of Commerce meeting in Greenwood, S.C., was referring to an audiotape broadcast Monday on Al Jazeera, purportedly of bin Laden, calling for insurgents in Iraq to unite.  Romney spokesman Kevin Madden later explained: Governor Romney simply misspoke. He was referring to the recently released audiotape of Osama bin Laden and misspoke when referencing his name. It was just a brief mix-up.(Marcella Bombardieri, Romney Mixes Up Osama, Obama During S.C. Speech. The Boston Globe, October 24, 2007) We need laws that protect everyone. Men and women, straights and gays, regardless of sexual perversion . . . ah, persuasion . . ..(New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug, quoted by Robert Louis Young in Understanding Misunderstandings: A Practical Guide to More Successful Human Interaction. University of Texas Press, 1999)The Badger State boasts [John] Kerrys most famous slip of the tongue: the time he declared his love for Lambert Field, suggesting that the states beloved Green Bay Packers play their home games on the frozen tundra of the St. Louis airport.(Chris Suellentrop, Kerry Puts the Gloves On. Slate, October 16, 2004)Types of Slips of the TongueNormal speech contains a large number of such slips, though these mostly pass unnoticed. The errors fall into patterns, and it is possible to draw conclusions from them about the underlying mechanisms involved. They can be divided into (1) Selection errors, where a wrong item has been chosen, usually a lexical item, as with tomorrow inste ad of today in Thats all for tomorrow. (2) Assemblage errors, where the correct items have been selected, but they have been assembled in the wrong order, as in holed and sealed for soled and healed.(Jean Aitchison, Slip of the Tongue. The Oxford Companion to the English Language, 1992) Causes of Slips of the TongueMost everyday slips of the tongue . . . are often simply the result of a sound being carried over from one word to the next, as in black bloxes (for black boxes), or a sound used in one word in anticipation of its occurrence in the next word, as in noman numeral (for roman numeral), or a tup of tea (cup), or the most highly played player (paid). The last example is close to the reversal type of slip, illustrated by shu flots, which may not make you beel fetter if youre suffering from a stick neff, and its always better to loop before you leak. The last two examples involve the interchange of word-final sounds and are much less common than word-initial slips.(George Yule, The Study of Language. Cambridge University Press, 2010)Predicting Slips of the Tongue[I]t is possible to make predictions about the form tongue slips are likely to take when they occur. Given the intended sentence The car missed the bike / but hit the wall (where / marks an intonation/rh ythm boundary, and the strongly stressed words are italicized), the likely slips are going to include bar for car or wit for hit. Most unlikely would be har for car (showing the influence of a less prominent word in the second tone unit) or lit for hit (showing a final consonant replacing an initial one).(David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2010) Freud on Slips of the TongueIf a slip of the tongue that turns what the speaker intended to say into its opposite is made by one of the adversaries in a serious argument, it immediately puts him at a disadvantage, and his opponent seldom wastes any time in exploiting the advantage for his own ends.(Sigmund Freud, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901), trans. by Anthea Bell. Penguin, 2002)The Lighter Side of Tongue Slips- Jerry: For my murinal, I was inspired by the death of my grandma.Tom: You said murinal![Everyone laughs]Jerry: No, I didnt.Ann: Yes, you did. You said murinal. I heard it.Jerry: Anyway, sheApril: Jerry, why dont you put that murinal in the mens room so people can murinate all over it?Tom: Jerry, go to the doctor. You might have a murinary tract infection.[Jerry takes down his mural and walks away defeated.]Jerry: I just wanted to show you my art.Everyone: Murinal! Murinal! Murinal!(The Camel, Parks and Recreation, 2010)- I understand you have taken exception to my calling you whores. Im sorry. I apologize. I ask you to note that I did not call you callous-ass strumpets, fornicatresses, or low-born gutter sluts. But I did say whores. No escaping that. And for that slip of the tongue, I apologize.(Paul Newman as Roy Bean in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, 1972)- Maizie said, At Sharis, for only fifteen dollars, you can get a haircut and a blow job.Oh? The gentleman looked surprised . . . and interested.Violet leaned over and said, She means a blow dry.Oh, he said, his voice dropping as the full realization of his loss occurred to him.(Tina Welling, Crybaby Ranch. New American Library, 2008)

Strangers on a Train Essays

Strangers on a Train Essays Strangers on a Train Essay Strangers on a Train Essay Essay Topic: The Stranger Chris Colangelo Film as an Art Form 32660 Frank Foster Strangers on a Train Word Count 1559 1. Guy Haines is a pro tennis player from Metcalf that feels tennis is not what he wants to do with his life and that politics is what he is meant for. Guy doesn’t drink or smoke much but will do so on occasion, Guy is very friendly and modest about his fame. When Guy meets Bruno on the train for the first time he doesn’t want to be around him for very long as Bruno tends to intrude into Guy’s personal life. It makes Guy upset. Guy’s wife has been cheating on him and wants a divorce and Guy doesn’t want to talk about it with Bruno. Guy has a weird sense of humor as he sarcastically says things like, â€Å"I thought murder was against the law† or â€Å"sure Bruno, sure they’re ok†. Guy has acquired a significant financial gain from his tennis playing and when he goes to Metcalf to meet with his wife to finalize the divorce, she double crosses him and literally tries to ruin his life for her personal gain. Guy gets so angry about his wife’s double crossing he tells her she will pay and while on the phone with his girlfriend, Anne Morton, he says he could strangle her or break her neck. Even though Guy is very upset by his wife’s actions, he was alarmed to find that Bruno had killed his wife and called Bruno a crazy maniac and tells Bruno that he is going to the police, but when Bruno tells him that he will be viewed as an accessory to murder Guy regretfully agrees not to go to the police and acts like he doesn’t know anything. Guy sometimes can’t control his feelings toward Bruno and at one point punches Bruno in the face for making a seen at a party. Guy is dating Anne Mortan who is a senator’s daughter which makes him look as if he were dating her as a way into politics. Guy gets easily offended at the mention of such accusations. Guy cares about keeping Anne Morton and her family out of the mess of the murder. He also cares about keeping a good public image to help him get into politics. Guy is a bad liar. When the phone is brought to him and he finds out it was Bruno he quickly hangs up the phone and when asked who it was he said,† There must have been a mistake, it wasn’t for me†. Clearly showing suspicion by the fact that Guy is a bad liar tells a little about his character, he is just a typical honest man that likes to play tennis. . Bruno Antony is a very wealthy man from Arlington but not by his own work. His family is rich and Bruno simply lives off of his family’s wealth. Bruno is very talkative and cares about his mother who is mentally ill. Bruno likes to smoke, drink, and gamble and that is the behavior that got him kicked out of three colleges. Bruno believes that you should do everything before you die to an un realistic level. Bruno’s father thinks that Bruno is a bum and is determined to get Bruno a job if it’s the last thing he does. Bruno can’t stand that his father has so much money and insists that Bruno get a job like a normal person. Bruno often thinks about different ways to kill his father and the thought is relaxing to him Bruno even says, â€Å"I used to put myself to sleep at night figuring it all out†. Bruno is a psychotic man; he thinks and plots about murder, often creating a plan and running through it in his mind. When Bruno meets Guy on the train for the very first time he already knows everything about Guy; his tennis career, his interest in politics, his divorce, his girlfriend, everything. Bruno reads about everything and everyone. Bruno likes Guy and wants to be Guy’s friend even though Guy doesn’t seem to have any desire to be around Bruno. Bruno gets into Guy’s personal life and brings up sensitive things that he knows about. Bruno merely talks to Guy about the idea of swapping murders and even though Guy is repulsed by the idea, Bruno moves forward as if they had cut a deal. Bruno is very resourceful; he seems to always know where Guy is and how to get ahold of him. He also has no trouble finding Guy’s wife, Miriam. Bruno waits by her house, waiting for her to leave, he follows her and the two men she is with to a theme park. Bruno enjoys the thrill of the hunt. He loves following Miriam as if it were a game to him. Bruno flirts with Miriam using simple eye gestures and smiles, making it all the more easier for Bruno to complete his murder. When Bruno kills Miriam, he doesn’t just attack her from behind, he gets right up in her face and flicks the lighter to illuminate their faces, he looks right into her eyes and asks her if she’s Miriam. When she replies, he wraps his hands around her throat and strangles her to death with no remorse. When Bruno tells Guy about what he had done, Guy says he’s going to the police but Bruno quickly tricks Guy into thinking that if he goes to the police that he will be an accessory to murder as Bruno has nothing to gain by killing Guy’s wife so Guy must have convinced Bruno to kill his wife. Even though Bruno is very smart he is also very impatient. He shows himself to Guy even when he knows that Guy has police following him at all times. Bruno is under the impression that he had completed his end of the deal and Guy owes him the death of Bruno’s father. When Bruno finds that Guy has no intention of killing his father he decides to go back to the scene of the crime and plant Guy’s lighter to give the police evidence that would link Guy to the murder. Even after Bruno is shot and knows he is going to die, he still won’t admit to the murder and continues to frame Guy. 3. Guy and Bruno are very different men but they are similar in some ways. Bruno and Guy both feel that they have been wronged; Bruno by his father’s wanting him to work, and Guy’s wife cheating on him, then double crossing him and ruining his life for monetary gain. Both Bruno and Guy have money and they both want to be more in life than their current position. Guy wants to get into politics and Bruno wants to do something he feels is important. Both men are intelligent and use their intelligence to work toward their goals; Guy moving forward in his career and Bruno manipulating Guy to keep himself out of prison. Both men break the law and make foolish decisions; Bruno by killing Miriam and Guy by slipping out and ditching his police escort. 4. There are objects in the movie that link multiple characters together. The first is Bruno’s tie clip given to him by his mother. The fact that his name is on the tie clip is very important in itself because it becomes an identifier. Anne Morton notices this when Bruno talks to Guy out side when he is with Anne. Guy tells her that he has never met him before and that he was simply just a fan. But later, when at the tennis courts, Bruno introduces himself again as if they had never met. Because Anne saw Bruno’s tie clip she was certain that it was the same man and that something was up. Another object in the movie was Miriam’s glasses. After Bruno killed her he took the glasses and gave them to Guy as proof of the murder. Later in the movie, not the physical glasses themselves, but the mental image of the glasses Bruno had in his head reminded him of the murder. When seeing Anne’s sister Barbara who looked a little like Miriam, the glasses reminded him of the murder and he had a flashback to the crime. This was obvious to Barbara and when Barbara told Anne about it, she said she had noticed it too. This was one of the key pieces in Anne discovering that Bruno killed Miriam. 5. The object use for the resolution of the story was Guy’s lighter that had tennis rackets and A G engraved on it. This is very important because it clearly can be proven to belong to Guy and would put him at the scene of the crime if Bruno had placed it there. Bruno knew this and was very careful when someone asked for a light on the train. Bruno pulled out a box of matches even though he had the lighter in his hand. Bruno didn’t want anyone to see him with the lighter and it would lose its ability to link Guy to the murder. At the end of the movie the lighter was used to prove that Bruno was planning on planting the lighter on the island to frame Guy. That one single Item was what cleared Guy’s name.

The Effectiveness of Performance Appraisal Dissertation

The Effectiveness of Performance Appraisal - Dissertation Example Performance appraisal refers to assess and analyze a worker’s performance and results at the work place. It refers to a system of retaining employees, by providing them the guidance, fair treatment and a sense of motivation towards work. These are built-in outcomes of a formally set performance appraisal system. Organizations need performance appraisal system due to multiple numbers of reasons. Out of all one major reason is employee performance and other is employee retention through employee rights. This chapter will signify the importance of performance appraisal system in the organization, by uncovering the effectiveness of the system and the positive outcomes it brings for the organization, managers and staff. To truly grasp the concept of performance appraisal and its effectiveness, a critical evaluation of the literature will be made. Research Aims and Objectives To determine the role of human resource management in achieving organizational goals. To determine how human resource management benefits employees to achieve organizational goals in Chinese business market. To analyze and assess the impact of performance appraisal on organizational performance. The aim is to focus on performance appraisal as one effective method of HRM to bring organizational performance. To understand the relationship between effective performance appraisal and organizational performance. To determine the relationship between effective performance appraisal and employee performance. The aim is to test and measure the effectiveness of performance appraisal of a selected food company in Hohhot China. Literature Review The Markets of Buying and Selling Labor When markets start flourishing with the capitalist regime, they have to bear challenges in the labor section. Markets which undertake industrialists’ basing and hold a major share of foreign direct investment, there is a chance that labor gets sidelined in such markets. India being an emerging industrialist econ omy upholds this situation where there is an excess of labor conflicts and strikes all over. Similarly, China where there is a trend of buying and selling labor in replacement of commodities, monetary and nonmonetary benefits precisely holds the same trend of labors’ strike and protesting. According to Chan (2010), in the last decade capitalism has been encircling around the communist state of China. A major investment has been brought into the Chinese private sector business which has invited the Stake holder’s interest and influence into the business function. Due to more power in hands of stake holders, the rights of labor are being avoided and ignored, which have created the revolt situation in most of the private sector firms. The protestation of labor is a situation where manpower has lost its focus, its direction and its willingness to work and perform respectively. The political segment of the country is dealing with this challenge as it is more on the national ist trail and wants to resolve the labor conflicts. This is because the country’s bureaucracy realizes the importance of labor power (manpower) - a source which it feels to be the primary base of industrialization and urbanization in the country (The Economist, 2010). From organizational point of view, employee constraining affects employee’s performance. Likewise, when employees are constrained by any means i.e by the market trend where labor is intensively sold and bought, they simply keep their directions straight- continuing to the job