I am a Master of Freudian Slips

Once, when I was in high school, I was sitting in speech class-- probably more correctly should have been termed my Forensics class since it dealt more with speech writing than with talking, although you have to learn to deliver too, I suppose. Anyway, I digress.

Once, which I was in high school, I was sitting in my forensics class and we were talking about an upcoming tournament. I was sitting on top of one of the desks facing one of the guys in my class that I had a little bit of a crush on-- more for his smarts than for his looks, so I wasn't quite as much of a dork as I normally would have been if he had been HOT! Hot! Hot!

The class was just prior to lunch and I was getting hungry. What I meant to say was, "You know, I'm getting really hungry." But instead...

I looked up at him and sighed and said, "You know, I'm getting really horny."

I don't know that I'd ever seen him move that fast before, but he suddenly hopped off of his seat and looked at me with this expression.

That tendency to slip has not left me, which is why today as I was bantering with one of the guys about being a Vindictive Bitch (his words, not mine, even though he denies he said it), what I meant to say was "You know, I have that whole VB thing happening for me." But instead...

"You know, I have that whole VD problem happening for me."

This, after an entire conversation about how I never make mistakes. Yeah... right.

My life. It would make for really good reality tv sometimes.

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A Freudian slip, or parapraxia, is an error in speech or memory that is believed to be caused by the unconscious mind. Some errors, such as a woman accidentally calling her husband by the name of the other man with whom she is having an affair, seem to represent relatively clear cases of Freudian slips. In other cases, the error might appear to be trivial or bizarre, but may show some deeper meaning on analysis. A Freudian slip is not limited to a slip of the tongue, or to sexual desires. It can extend to our word perception where we might read a word incorrectly because of our fixations.

The Freudian slip is named after Sigmund Freud, who described the phenomenon he called faulty action (Fehlleistung or parapraxis) in his 1901 book The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. Freud gives several examples of seemingly trivial, bizarre or nonsensical Freudian slips in Psychopathology; the analysis is often quite lengthy and complex, as was the case with many of the dreams in The Interpretation of Dreams.

Popularization of the term has diluted its technical meaning in some contexts to include any slip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, often in an attempt by the user to humorously assign hidden motives or sexual innuendo to the mistake. It is not clear, however, what Freud considered an "innocent" mistake, or if he thought that there were any innocent mistakes. The enormous quantity of slips analyzed in Psychopathology, many of which are banal or apparently trivial, would seem to indicate that Freud felt almost any seemingly tiny slip or hesitation would respond to analysis.

The most popular way to explain a Freudian slip is "When you say one thing, but mean your mother", a reference to his Oedipus Complex.