Gordon Brown's gaffe shows what Gail Jefferson meant by a 'sound formed error'

Yesterday, I was phoned by a BBC radio station and asked to comment on Gordon Brown’s gaffe about how he had ‘saved the world’ when he’d apparently meant to say ‘saved the banks’. As this was the first I’d heard of it, they allowed me an hour or two to have a look at it before phoning back to do the interview.

News of this high profile slip of the tongue reminded me of a fascinating paper on the ‘Poetics of Ordinary Talk’* that I’d heard Gail Jefferson, one of the founders of conversation analysis, give at a conference in Boston in 1977. It included a discussion of what she called ‘sound formed errors’, by which she meant cases where a speaker’s choice of a ‘wrong’ word seems to be triggered by sounds in the words that came just before it.

In one of her examples, the first syllable of ‘Wednesday’ was abandoned and corrected to ‘Thursday’:

“I will be up that way Wed – uh –Thursday.”

Gail’s suggestion was that, as the mistaken initial selection of ‘Wednesday’ came just after there had been two ‘wuh’ noises in quick succession, it could have been the repetitive sounds that triggered the error.

This made me wonder whether there had been any ‘wuh’ sounds in what Gordon Brown had said just before saying “world” when he’d meant to say “banks”. So it was with considerable surprise and delight that I spotted no less than four of them in the sentence leading up to the error that's caused him so much embarrassment.

GORDON BROWN: “The first point of recapitalisation was to save banks that would otherwise have collapsed and we’ve not only saved the world – erh - saved the banks.”

Unfortunately you won’t be able to watch this on most of the clips on news websites and YouTube, as they’ve been edited to start at the point where he says “.. and we’ve not only…” - but you can see the full sentence below (with Italian sub-titles).

The fact that there were so many 'wuh' sounds before the error was a real gift to me because I could now say something in the interview that might be a bit different from the various speculations coming from other commentators since the gaffe had hit the airwaves.

I also said something else in the interview, but I can’t remember whether it was in the original Jefferson paper, had came up in the discussion after it or was something I’d noticed or been told about some time since 1977. This is the idea that ‘sound formed errors’ and ‘triggered puns’ (also featured in her paper) are more likely to happen when a speaker is tired, because that’s when the brain is most likely to take handy short cuts like selecting words that sound like others nearby.

This led me to suggest that Gordon Brown’s error might have happened because he was more tired than usual, a comment I now regret – as it enabled the interviewer to get away from what I thought was quite an interesting subject and go down the track they’d presumably been hoping their ‘expert’ would take them along in the first place.

“So can we conclude from this” asked the interviewer, “that the stresses of the job are getting too much for him?”

Er, no. I just said that he might have been tired.

But I do think it qualifies as a prime example of exactly what Gail meant by ‘sound formed errors’ – and how they can sometimes get you into trouble you could have well done without.

(* Gail Jefferson, ‘On the Poetics of Ordinary Talk’, Text and Performance Quarterly, 1996, 16(1), 1-61 - you can download the paper by clicking here or on the title above).).

A welcome visit from Peking

I'm pleased to report that there's been a visit to the Blog from Peking - yes "Peking, Beijing, China" is how the local Chinese service provider refers to the place. This suggests that the Chinese themselves are apparently as relaxed about calling the city "Peking" as the Indians are about calling Mumbai "Bombay" (see my entry What's in a place name on 1st December).

Wikipedia casts some light on why this might be so. Not only was 'Peking" chosen as suitable by those who translated Chinese writing into Roman letters, but it's also closer to the way it's pronounced in some Chinese dialects, as can be seen from the following (anoraks can inspect the fuller story by clicking here):

"Peking is the name of the city according to Chinese Postal Map Romanization ... The term Peking originated with French missionaries four hundred years ago and corresponds to an older pronunciation predating a subsequent sound change in Mandarin from [kʲ] to [tɕ][15] ([tɕ] is represented in pinyin as j, as in Beijing). It is still used in many languages ... The pronunciation "Peking" is also closer to the Fujianese dialect of Amoy or Min Nan spoken in the city of Xiamen, a port where European traders first landed in the 16th century, while "Beijing" more closely approximates the Mandarin dialect's pronunciation."

However, I'm still none the wiser about when and why the British media started to change the way they spell and pronounce varous place names and would be interested to hear if anyone could clarify the issue for me.

I can see why, following independence and/or revolution, it might be appropriate to recognise a new status quo by calling "Salisbury, Rhodesia" "Harare, Zimbabwe", or "Saigon, South Vietnam" "Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam". But even here there's no consistency, as our media still refuses to call "Burma" "Myanmar", as decreed by that country's rulers, which is presumably an overtly political decision by media that purport to be 'politically correct', but doesn't happen to approve of this particular junta.

On the other more trivial issue mentioned in my earlier blog entry, Wikipedia mentions a breed of dogs called "Pekingese", "Peke" or "Pekinese", as well as a few more obscure names. So at least we don't have to worry about trying to get our English tongues around words like "Beijingeses" or "Beijes".

The Office Christmas Party Speech: roads to failure and success

One of the advantages of being self-employed is that I’m normally spared from the annual rigours of the office Christmas party. Sometimes, however, you simply can’t escape from being dragged along to one as the spouse or partner of an employee.

Once when this happened to me, the boss came up to me during the pre-dinner aperitifs, apparently to ask my advice. “Ahh -” he said, “you’re supposed to be an expert on public speaking, so how about a few tips for my speech.”

At such short notice, all I could suggest was that he should make no more than three points, and stick to drinking water throughout the meal - making the obvious point that alcohol interferes with the very part of the brain that produces speech.

I also pointed out that, by the time he got up to speak, everyone else would be at different stages of intoxicaion and he would have the advantage of being one of the few people in the room with a clear head. “Then, once you’ve made your speech,” I said generously, “feel free to hit the bottle as much as you like.”

He made it pretty clear that he didn’t think much of my advice by promptly ordering another gin and tonic and telling me that his wife had already agreed to drive him home. During the dinner, he drank one glass of wine after another, glancing at me occasionally with what looked suspiciously like a defiant grin.

Then, when the time came for him to speak, this normally articulate and entertaining communicator slurred his words, and rambled on for what everyone agreed afterwards was far too long. It was difficult to tell one point from another, let alone how many he was making - other than that there were far more than the three I’d recommended.

The safest way of avoiding such embarrassment is obviously not to make a speech at all. But people at office parties do expect someone to say something, even if it’s only to wish them a happy Christmas. And there are always going to be people there to be welcomed and/or thanked.

So, if you’re the one on whom this burden falls, here are seven steps to see you safely through it.

Seven Steps to Success

1. Plan what you want to say in advance, jot some headings down on cards and don’t be afraid to be seen using them on the day. Apart from giving you the added confidence that comes from knowing that you won’t forget what to say, it will make you look conscientious and professional for having gone to the trouble of preparing a few words speciallyfor the occasion.

2. Drink as little alcohol as possible, and preferably none at all, before making the speech.

3. Welcome and thank everyone for coming, with a special welcome to spouses, partners and any other guests from outside the office.

4. Thank everyone involved in organising the event, preparing food, booking venue, etc.

5. If appropriate, mention any significant or amusing things that have happened since the last Christmas party, and perhaps speculate on what lies ahead in the coming year.

6. Wish everyone a merry Christmas and happy new year -- and make sure you sound as though you mean it.

7. Be brief: five minutes is probably the absolute limit. After all, hardly anyone ever complains about a speech being too short, and the biggest compliment you can be paid is when people say they wish you’d gone on longer