My mother once informed the neighbor that I had just completed my "Bastard of Arts" degree. It was a slip of the lip, pure and simple. Just like the time she tried to tell my friend her horticultural ideas of incorporating sprays of sedum all around the front of my church. Instead, she announced that she would like to see "avalanches of semen all around the front of the church." Mortification is too tame a word for how she felt, sitting in the third row of church, facing my chortling friend.
I don't know why it happens, but children often suffer from the same issues their parents do. Standing in the ICU one day, trying to explain how respirator tubes cause air impedence, I announced to my female patient's handsome sons that their mother would have to get a tracheostomy because of her impotence. Surprised, they looked at the floor. I paused, hearing my own words echo in my ears. One of the sons looked up at me. "Did you say what you meant to say just then?" I bellowed with laughter. "I don't think so!" They were kind and we all laughed together. I was chagrinned beyond words.
Mother once invited some friends to come by and pick the parsley in her garden. They did come, but it immediately started to sprinkle outside. "Hurry," mother announced. "It only takes five minutes to piss in the parsley." Amidst bellowing laughter, mother looked around, confused. "Is that some kind of Italian custom?" laughed Bill.
Sometimes we may be clear about what we mean to say, but it all comes out wrong. Have you ever tried to compliment someone only to have it come out like a sidewsays insult? Or wish to correct someone's poor grammar but the sentence you suggest is even worse? I do this, quite often. It seems that it doesn't take much to end up in a verbal slip knot.
Have you ever blurted out something like these?
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