Psychopathology of Everyday Life · Sigmund Freud
“A BLUNDER TRULY UNFORTUNATE.
“Typographical errors come only too frequently from even the best-regulated newspaper presses. They are always humiliating, often a cause of anger, and occasionally dangerous, but now and then they are distinctly amusing. This latter quality they are most apt to have when they are made in the office of a journalistic neighbour, a fact that probably explains why we can read with smiling composure an elaborate editorial apology which appears in the _Hartford Courant_. “Its able political commentator tried the other day to say that, _unfortunately_ for Connecticut, ‘J. H. is no longer a Member of Congress. Printer and proof-reader combined to deprive the adverb of its negative particle.’ At least, the able political commentator so declares, and we wouldn’t question his veracity for the world; but sorrowful experience has taught most of us that it’s safer to get that sort of editorial disclaimer of responsibility into print before looking up the copy, and perhaps--just perhaps--the world-enlightener, who _knows_ that he wrote _unfortunate_, because that is what he intended to write, didn’t rashly chance the discovery of his own guilt before he convicted the composing-room of it. “Be that as it may, the meaning of the sentence was cruelly changed, and a friend was grieved or offended. Not so long ago a more astonishing error than this one crept into a book review of ours--a very solemn and scientific book. It consisted of the substitution of the word ‘caribou’ for the word ‘carbon’ in a paragraph dealing with the chemical composition of the stars. In that case the writer’s fierce self-exculpation is at least highly plausible, as it seems hardly possible that he wrote ‘caribou’ when he intended to write ‘carbon,’ but even he was cautious enough to make no deep inquiry into the matter.”
Another biblical misprint dates back to the year 1580, and is found in the Bible of the famous library of Wolfenbuttel, in Hesse. In the passage in Genesis where God tells Eve that Adam shall be her master and shall rule over her, the German translation is “_Und er soll dein Herr sein_.” The word _Herr_ (master) was substituted by _Narr_, which means fool. Newly discovered evidence seems to show that the error was a conscious machination of the printer’s suffragette wife, who refused to be ruled by her husband. (_h_) Dr. Ernest Jones reports the following case concerning A. A. Brill: “Although by custom almost a teetotaler, he yielded to a friend’s importunity one evening, in order to avoid offending him, and took a little wine. During the next morning an exacerbation of an eye-strain headache gave him cause to regret this slight indulgence, and his reflection on the subject found expression in the following slip of the pen. Having occasion to write the name of a girl mentioned by a patient, he wrote not Ethel but Ethyl.[27] It happened that the girl in question was rather too fond of drink, and in Dr. Brill’s mood at the time this characteristic of hers stood out with conspicuous significance.”[28]
Omissions in writing are naturally explained in the same manner as mistakes in writing. A remarkable example of omission which is of historic importance was reported by Dr. B. Dattner.[29] In one of the legal articles dealing with the financial obligations of both countries, which was drawn up in the year 1867 during the readjustment between Austria and Hungary, the word “effective” was accidentally omitted in the Hungarian translation. Dattner thinks it probable that the unconscious desire of the Hungarian law-makers to grant Austria the least possible advantages had something to do with this omission. Another example of omission is the following related by Brill: “A prospective patient, who had corresponded with me relative to treatment, finally wrote for an appointment for a certain day. Instead of keeping his appointment he sent regrets which began as follows: ‘Owing to _foreseen_ circumstances I am unable to keep my appointment.’ He naturally meant to write _unforeseen_. He finally came to me months later, and in the course of the analysis I discovered that my suspicions at the time were justified; there were no unforeseen circumstances to prevent his coming at that time; he was advised not to come to me. The unconscious does not lie.” Wundt gives a most noteworthy proof for the easily ascertained fact that we more easily make mistakes in writing than in speaking (_loc. cit._, p. 374). He states: “In the course of normal conversation the inhibiting function of the will is constantly directed toward bringing into harmony the course of ideation with the movement of articulation. If the articulation following the ideas becomes retarded through mechanical causes, as in writing, such anticipations then readily make their appearance.”
Observation of the determinants which favour lapses in reading gives rise to doubt, which I do not like to leave unmentioned, because I am of the opinion that it may become the starting-point of a fruitful investigation. It is a familiar fact that in reading aloud the attention of the reader often wanders from the text and is directed toward his own thoughts. The results of this deviation of attention are often such that when interrupted and questioned he cannot even state what he has read. In other words, he has read automatically, although the reading was nearly always correct. I do not think that such conditions favour any noticeable increase in the mistakes. We are accustomed to assume concerning a whole series of functions that they are most precisely performed when done automatically, with scarcely any conscious attention. This argues that the conditions governing attention in mistakes in speaking, writing, and reading must be differently determined than assumed by Wundt (cessation or diminution of attention). The examples which we have subjected to analysis have really not given us the right to take for granted a quantitative diminution of attention. We found what is probably not exactly the same thing, a disturbance of the attention through a strange obtruding thought.
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