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VI
MISTAKES IN READING AND WRITING

THAT the same viewpoints and observation should hold true for mistakes
in reading and writing as for lapses in speech is not at all surprising when
one remembers the inner relation of these functions. I shall here confine
myself to the reports of several carefully analyzed examples and shall
make no attempt to include all of the phenomena.

A. LAPSES IN READING

(a) While looking obliquely, I read over a number of the Leipziger Illustrierte, which
I was holding obliquely, I read as the title of the front-page picture, “A
Wedding Celebration in the Odyssey.” Astonished and with my attention
aroused, I moved the page into the proper position only to read correctly,
“A Wedding Celebration in the Ostsee (Baltic Sea).” How did this sense-
less mistake in reading come about?

Immediately my thoughts turned to a book by Ruth, Experimental
Investigations of “Music Phantoms,” etc., with which I had recently been
much occupied, as it closely touched the psychologic problems that are of
interest to me. The author promised a work in the near future to be called
Analysis and Principles of Dream Phenomena. No wonder that I, having
just published an Interpretation of Dreams, awaited the appearance of
this book with the most intense interest. In Ruth’s work concerning music
phantoms, I found an announcement in the beginning of the table of con-
tents of the detailed inductive proof that the old Hellenic myths and
traditions originated mainly from slumber and music phantoms, from
dream phenomena and from deliria. Thereupon, I had immediately
plunged into the text in order to find out whether he was also aware that
the scene where Odysseus appears before Nausicaä was based upon the
common dream of nakedness. One of my friends called my attention to
the clever passage in G. Keller’s Grüne Heinrich, which explains this
episode in the Odyssey as an objective representation of the dream of the
mariner straying far from home. I added to it the reference to the exhibi-
tion dream of nakedness.¹

¹The Interpretation of Dreams. See p. 292.

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(b) A woman who is very anxious to have children always reads storks
instead of stocks.

(c) One day, I received a letter which contained very disturbing news.
I immediately called my wife and informed her that poor Mrs. Wm. H.
was seriously ill and was given up by the doctors. There must have been a
false ring to the words in which I expressed my sympathy, as my wife
grew suspicious, asked to see the letter and expressed her opinion that it
could not read as stated by me, because no one calls the wife by the
husband’s name. Moreover, the correspondent was well acquainted with
the Christian name of the woman concerned. I defended my assertion ob-
stinately and referred to the customary visiting cards, on which a woman
designates herself by the Christian name of her husband. I was finally
compelled to take up the letter and, as a matter of fact, we read therein
“Poor W. M.” What is more, I had even overlooked “Poor Dr. W. M.”
My mistake in reading signified a spasmodic effort, so to speak, to turn
the sad news from the man towards the woman. The title between the
adjective and the name did not go well with my claim that the woman
must have been meant. That is why it was omitted in the reading. The
motive for this falsifying was not that the woman was less an object of my
sympathy than the man, but the fate of this poor man had excited my
fears regarding another and nearer person who, I was aware, had the
same disease.

(d) Both irritating and laughable is a lapse in reading to which I am
frequently subject when I walk through the streets of a strange city dur-
ing my vacation. I then read antiquities on every shop sign that shows the
slightest resemblance to the word; this displays the questing spirit of
the collector.

(e) In his important work,¹⁾ Bleuler relates:

“While reading, I once had the intellectual feeling of seeing my name
two lines below. To my astonishment, I found only the words blood
corpuscles. Of the many thousands of lapses in reading in the peripheral
as well as in the central field of vision that I have analyzed, this was the
most striking case. Whenever I imagined that I saw my name, the word
that induced this illusion usually showed a greater resemblance to my
name than the word bloodcorpuscles. In most cases, all the letters of my
name had to be close together before I could commit such an error. In
this case, however, I could readily explain the delusion of reference and
the illusion. What I had just read was the end of a statement concerning
a form of bad style in scientific works, a tendency from which I am not
entirely free.”

¹⁾Bleuler, Affectivity, Suggestibility, Paranoia, page 121, Halle. Marhold, 1906.

89

B. LAPSES IN WRITING

(a) On a sheet of paper containing principally short daily notes of
business interest, I found, to my surprise, the incorrect date, “Thursday,
October 20th,” bracketed under the correct date of the month of Sep-
tember. It was not difficult to explain this anticipation as the expression
of a wish. A few days before, I had returned fresh from my vacation and
felt ready for any amount of professional work, but as yet, there were few
patients. On my arrival, I had found a letter from a patient announcing
her arrival on the twentieth of October. As I wrote the same date in Sep-
tember, I may certainly have thought, “X. ought to be here already; what
a pity about that whole month!” and with this thought, I pushed the cur-
rent date a month ahead. In this case, the disturbing thought can scarcely
be called unpleasant; therefore, after noticing this lapse in writing, I
immediately knew the solution. In the fall of the following year, I ex-
perienced an entirely analogous and similarly motivated lapse in writing.
Dr. Ernest Jones has made a study of similar cases, and found that most
mistakes in writing dates are motivated.

(b) I received the proof sheets of my contribution to the annual report
on neurology and psychiatry, and I was naturally obliged to review with
special care the names of authors, which, because of the many different
nationalities represented, offer the greatest difficulties to the compositor.
As a matter of fact, I found some strange-sounding names still in need of
correction; but, oddly enough, the compositor had corrected one single
name in my manuscript, and with very good reason. I had written Burck-
hard, which the compositor guessed to be Burckhard. I had praised the
treatise of this obstetrician entitled The Influence of Birth on the Origin
of Infantile Paralysis, and I was not conscious of the least enmity toward
him. But an author in Vienna, who had angered me by an adverse criti-
cism of my Interpretation of Dreams, bears the same name. It was as if in
writing the name Burckhard, meaning the obstetrician, a wicked thought
concerning the other Burckhard had obtruded itself. The twisting of the
name, as I have already stated in regard to lapses in speech, often signi-
fies a depreciation.¹

(c) The following is seemingly a serious case of lapsus calami, which
it would be equally correct to describe as an erroneously carried out
action. I intended to withdraw from the postal savings bank the sum of
300 crowns, which I wished to send to an absent relative to enable him to

¹A similar situation occurs in Julius Caesar, iii. 3.
 

“Cinna. Truly, my name is Cinna.
“Burgher. Tear him to pieces! he is a conspirator.
“Cinna. I am Cinna the poet! not Cinna the conspirator.
“Burgher. No matter; his name is Cinna; tear the name out of his heart and let
him go.”

90

take treatment at a watering-
place. I noted that my account was 4,38c
crowns, and I decided to bring it down to the round sum of 4,000 crowns,
which was not to be touched in the near future. After making out the
regular cheque, I suddenly noticed that I had written not 380 crowns, as I
had intended, but exactly 438 crowns. I was frightened at the untrust-
worthiness of my action. I soon realized that my fear was groundless, as I
had not grown poorer than I was before. But I had to reflect for quite a
while in order to discover what influence diverted me from my first in-
tention without making itself known to my consciousness.

First I got on a wrong track: I subtracted 380 from 438, but after that,
I did not know what to do with the difference. Finally an idea occurred to
me which showed me the true connection. Four hundred thirty-
eight is
exactly 10 per cent of the entire account of 4,380 crowns! But the book-
seller, too, gives a 10 per cent discount! I recalled that a few days before,
I had selected several books, in which I was no longer interested, in order
to offer them to the bookseller for 300 crowns. He thought the price de-
manded too high, but promised to give me a final answer within the next
few days. If he should accept my first offer, he would replace the exact
sum that I was to spend on the sufferer. There is no doubt that I was
sorry about this expenditure. The emotion at the realization of my mis-
takes can be more easily understood as a fear of growing poor through
such outlays. But both the sorrow over this expense and the fear of
poverty connected with it were entirely foreign to my consciousness; I
did not regret this expense when I promised the sum, and would have
laughed at the idea of any such underlying motive. I should probably
not have assigned such feelings to myself had not my psychoanalytic
practice made me quite familiar with the repressed elements of psychic
life, and if I had not had a dream a few days before which brought forth
the same solution.

(d) Although it is usually difficult to find the person responsible for
printers’ errors, the psychologic mechanisms underlying them are the
same as in other mistakes. Typographical errors also well demonstrate
the fact that people are not at all indifferent to such trivialities as “mis-
takes,” and, judging by the indignant reactions of the parties concerned,
one is forced to the conclusion that mistakes are not treated by the public
at large as mere accidents. This state of affairs is very well summed up in
the following editorial from the New York Times. Not the least interest-
ing are the comments of the keen-witted editor, who does not seem to
share our views:

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THE WRITER’S DEVIL

“Behold what a fire a little word kind-
leth by its absence. The other day, ‘not’ dropped out of this sentence in an editorial in the first edition of the
Sunday Times:

‘For years and years Southern newspapers have asked
Southern farmers to put all their hopes in one crop.’

“This error, exactly reversing the writer’s intention, was corrected in
subsequent editions. Notless, the sentence came to the Charleston News
and Courier, organ of that stern and witty resenter of the universe as she
is at present conducted, Mr. William W. Ball. There had been a grievous
fault, and grievously must the sinner answer it. Severe is the rebuke and
kindly, if a bit superfluous, the offer of ‘information’ to a darkened mind.
“Ordinarily, we shouldn’t have noticed one of the expected and in-
evitable slips of most newspapers. ‘Not’ is an easy faller-by-the-way. All
writers for the press know what pits they are liable to fall into any day.
Why does a mistake that glares and gibbers at you in print hide itself so
successfully in the copy or the proof? How do you come to set down
‘eighteenth’ century when you mean ‘nineteenth’? How does Richard
Grant White’s ‘heteronymy’ so persecute you that you are capable of
attributing ‘Paradise Lost’ to John Milton, the crazy sporting squire?
Some students of demonology believe firmly in the constant presence and
maleficence of the writer’s devil.”¹

“We venture to doubt the editor’s assumption of demonological influ-
ences. Examination of a great many typographical errors clearly shows
that they are based on the mechanisms described here.

“The following two examples were reported from Berlin in the New
York Times:

A typesetter was imprisoned because instead of ending an article with
the official formula ‘Heil Hitler,’ he inadvertently permitted a ‘t’ to
attach itself to ‘Heil’ so that it read ‘Heilt Hitler,’ meaning ‘Heal
Hitler’ instead of ‘Hail Hitler.’ His pleading that it was a mistake was of
no avail. It seems that the Nazis who burned Freud’s works, nevertheless,
recognize the truth of Freud’s teachings. The mistake plainly showed the
typesetter’s view of Hitler’s personality. His mistake unconsciously ex-
presses his wish that the Lord may heal Hitler of his madness.

“The second example shows that even those who are nearest to the
Führer and constantly sing his praises to the Germans, do not really
believe what they say, as shown by the following wireless from Berlin to
the New York Times (November 12, 1936), congratulating eighteen

¹Given by the Editor.

52

hundred boys and girls of the Hitler Youth for taking part in the might-
iest Freiheitsbewegung (movement of liberty) in German history. Rudolf
Hess, the vice-leader of the Nazi party, used instead the word Freiheits-
beraubung (robbery of liberty). The last word appeared in the Lokalan-
zeiger and caused the publishers no small amount of annoyance.

“Abstract statements of a highly moral content are not seldom changed
erotically through a typographical mistake, as shown by the following
examples:

(e) “The teacher was giving an instruction paper on mathematical
methods, and spoke of a plan ‘for the instruction of youth that might be
carried out ad libidinem.’

(f) “Some time ago, the following embarrassing misprint appeared in
the Detroit Educational Bulletin, a high-quality journal devoted to
parents and teachers: “‘Our immorality is the good that lives after us.’
The ‘t’ was left out of the word “immortality” from Thomas A. Edison’s
quotation.”¹⁾

(g) The “Wicked Bible” is so called from the fact that the negative
was left out of the seventh commandment. This authorized edition of the
Bible was published in London in 1631, and it is said that the printer had
to pay a fine of two thousand pounds for the omission.
Another biblical misprint dates back to the year 1580, and is found in
the Bible of the famous library of Wolfenbüttel 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 im-
portunity 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.² 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.”³

(i) A woman wrote to her sister, felicitating her on the occasion of
taking possession of a new and spacious residence. A friend who was

¹ Given by the Editor.

² Ethyl alcohol is, of course, the chemical name for ordinary alcohol.

³ Jones, Psychoanalysis, p. 66.

93

present noticed that the writer put the wrong address on the letter, and
what was still more remarkable was the fact that she did not address it
to the previous residence, but to one long ago given up, but which her
sister had occupied when she first married. When the friend called her
attention to it, the writer remarked, “You are right; but what in the world
made me do this?”, to which her friend replied: “Perhaps you begrudge
her the nice big apartment into which she has just moved because you
yourself are cramped for space, and for that reason you put her back into
her first residence, where she was no better off than yourself.” “Of course
I begrudge her the new apartment,” she honestly admitted. As an after-
thought she added, “It is a pity that one is so mean in such matters.”

(k) Ernest Jones reports the following example given to him by Dr.
A. A. Brill. In a letter to Dr. Brill, a patient tried to attribute his nervous-
ness to business worries and excitement during the cotton crisis. He went
on to say: “My trouble is all due to that d— frigid wave; there isn’t
even any seed to be obtained for new crops.” He referred to a cold wave
which had destroyed the cotton crops, but instead of writing “wave” he
wrote “wife.” In the bottom of his heart, he entertained reproaches
against his wife on account of her marital frigidity and childlessness, and
he was not far from the cognition that the enforced abstinence played no
little part in the causation of his malady.

(l) 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 articula-
tion following the ideas becomes retarded through mechanical causes, as
in writing, such anticipations then readily make their appearance.”

Observation of the determinants which favor 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 investiga-
tion. 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

94

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 favor 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 automati-
cally, with scarcely any conscious attention. This argues that the condi-
tions 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 quantita-
tive diminution of attention. We found what is probably not exactly the
same thing, a disturbance of the attention through a strange obtruding
thought.