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Ask-A-Linguist - Message details
Subject: Word Substitution Based on Sound, not Meaning
Question:
I have just experienced something that colleagues have told me they have also had happen to them:

I was typing an e-mail to a colleague and aimed to write ''How can I make sure I get your signature?'' Instead, I substituted, ''How can I make *your I get your signature?'' Naturally, I didn't notice it, despite having read through the e-mail before sending it. My colleague pointed this out to me and wonders whether it has something to do with the sound of the words. That is, ''your'' and ''sure'' can be pronounced similarly.

Any thoughts?

Reply:
Let me catch up here (after being away from email for a few days), to confirm what
my colleagues have said.

I've observed myself making errors of recall in which the visual appearance of the
letters are confused (consider the letter forms that are confused in dyslexia, such a
p & q, d & b, M & W, etc.). At times I've created substitutions of the left-right hand
correspondences of touch typing get substituted (especially when very tired): "sad"
and "lad" are an example, but I've done some more complicated ones.

Many of these substitutions result in sequences of letters that are not "legal" English
words, and thus get corrected without being sent, but in the few cases where the
substitutions create allowed words, and words with roughly equivalent frequencies
(as in the "your/sure" case) the error will be overlooked.

You've got a slip that got by you because of sound, number of letters, and word
frequency.

Reply From: Nancy J. Frishberg    click here to access email
Date: Sep-09-2009
Other Replies:
  1. Re: Word Substitution Based on Sound, not Meaning James L Fidelholtz    (Aug-31-2009)
  2. Re: Word Substitution Based on Sound, not Meaning Elizabeth J Pyatt    (Aug-31-2009)
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