Naughtie's gaffe: 'C', 'K' & 'U' sounds or 'Freudian slippage'?

I've been a bit late catching up on news of James Naughtie's 'slip of the tongue' on BBC Radio 4's Today programme last week because I was away on holiday when it happened.

But I did hear about it and started wondering, as I did on hearing of Gordon Brown's claim to have 'saved the world', whether it would turn out to be yet another case of an 'error' being triggered by sounds of nearby words.

Now I've been able to listen to it, I can report that this is exactly what appears to have happened. As you can see from the transcript and hear in the audio-clip below, the hard 'c' or 'k' sound came just before and twice in quick succession immediately after the dreaded 'slip' - and, when a speaker is reading, he can see sounds and rhymes coming up before he's actually read out some of the earlier words (including the 'u' sound that also comes both before and after the error):

"First up after the news we're going to be talking to Jeremy Kunt-Hunt the culture secretary about broadband.."



As such, it was a fairly ordinary example of what the late Gail Jefferson described as a 'sound-formed error' (as too was Gordon Brown's 'saving the world' gaffe).

But, as I noted of Sarah Palin's recent North Korean 'slip of the tongue' - an example of the related 'category-formed error' - 'The trouble is ... that media commentators (and other experts) love to find deeper meaning in such errors, regardless of how they were formed. As Jefferson pointed out in her original paper, many alleged 'Freudian slips' turn out to be 'sound-formed' or 'category-formed' errors.

And on Radio 4 last Monday, it hardly took an hour for just such an expert to pop up in the very next programme, Andrew Marr's Start the Week - where one of the guests, David Aaronovich of The Times, was there to plug a series of programmes he'd made on ... er.. Freudian Slippage:


'C' , 'K', 'U' - or 'Freudian slippage'?
Although I've always been mystified by the extraordinary intellectual influence of a theory as thin on empirical backing as Freud's (unless it really is just that id, ego and superego amount to a particularly impressive example of the persuasive power of three-part lists), there's one thing about all the reports I've read about Mr Naughtie's gaffe that makes me wonder whether there might be more to all that sexual gobbledygook than I'd thought.

After all, everything I've seen about the story in the media refers to the four-letter word in question as C*** and not, as I did in my transcript above, as Kunt.

Could this, I wonder, along with the coughing and sniggering to be heard in the two audio clips, be firmer evidence of 'Freudian slippage' than anything said by Mr Naughtie last Monday morning?

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At the risk of blogging my own trumpet...

Arriving home after a blog-free week in Tenerife, I found a Google Alert directing me to a rather positive review of these pages on the politics.co.uk website (HERE).

I've long thought that blogging is a bit like writing books, as you never quite know whether you're hitting the mark(s) you were aiming for until you get unsolicited feedback from readers.

So to come across a review like this is not only very encouraging, but also helps to make it seem worth blogging on for a bit longer:

'Knowledgeable, well-written and occasionally witty - rather as one would expect from a professional communications consultant.

'Well laid-out without being visually stunning, Max wins points for plenty of functionality, links and videos.

'He seems to be on something of a crusade against the heinous practise of powerpoint presentations, which lends this blog a unique flavour.

'Not many blogs out there focus so much on politician's presentation style, so this makes a nice addition.

'Regular posting and decent opinion pieces round out what is a thoroughly impressive piece of work.'

I also take it as quite a compliment that Politics.co.uk awarded it the same score (8/10) as Iain Dale's Diary, one of the country's top-rated political blogs.
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Blatter the bureaucrat or Blatter the bully?

Blatter the bureaucrat
If you can bear it, here's Blatter the bureaucrat announcing FIFA's decision on which country should host the 2018 World Cup:


Blatter the bully
Now, again if you can bear it, here's Blatter the bully pushing President Zuma out of the way to present the cup to to the winners earlier this year:


Blatter the boor
As I pointed out then - in Bad manners from Blatter as he bags limelight to present the World Cup - there was a time when FIFA allowed heads of state to present the cup. But that, of course, was before Blatter and his boys took over.

Interestingly, the original YouTube video of this that I embedded in the post back in July suddenly stopped working, as it had mysteriously become 'unavailable'. Could it be, I wondered that FIFA had been so embarrassed by Blatter's boorish behavior that they'd had it removed?

In the light of today's announcements from FIFA, how they reached that or any of their other decisions remains a mystery.

So too is whether anyone will have had the decency to warn the Russians that whoever is their president in 2018 will need to bring shoulder-pads to the final.
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WikiLeaks News: Are Vladimir Putin and Vladek Schebal by any chance related?



Watching the chess match in the James Bond film From Russia With Love last night, I couldn't help wondering, as they do in Private Eye, whether Russian politician Vladimir Putin and Polish film actor, the late Vladek Schebal, were by any chance related?

Probably not, as Wikipeda assures us that Mr Shebal 'excelled in playing cold, sinister villains'.

P.S. 16th December - and another one
Today I must thank Patrick Hennessy, political editor of the Sunday Telegraph for drawing my attention to another candidate via Twitter (@PatJHennessy): Putin's true look like is much closer to home. It's @paulwaugh. Separated at birth...

I can see what he means, but don't know enough about Mr Waugh to know whether he's as good at 'playing cold, sinister villains' as he is at writing about them:


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Child of Thatcher or son of Brown: the power of contrast strikes again



After Wikileaks had revealed that William Hague had described himself and other top Tories as 'children of Thatcher', it had been widely expected that Labour leader Ed Miliband would mention it during today's Prime Minister's Question Time.

Less expected, perhaps, was that David Cameron had not only anticipated it too, but had also come ready with a neat contrast up his sleeve in case it came up.

And so it was that the PM's "I'd rather be a child of Thatcher than son of Brown" was instantly picked up in the TV studios, made mass appearances on Twitter and will no doubt be the only line that get's quoted or remembered from today's proceedings in the House of Commons.

For students of rhetoric, it was sheer delight to see the power of the contrast striking yet again.

You can find out more about the different types of contrast and how to use them in Lend Me Your Ears (especially pp.182-190). Or you can see a variety of video clips, transcripts and discussion in the selection below.

Shades of Nye Bevan and Oscar Wilde?
Cameron's performance today reminded me of a couple of stories about Aneurin Bevan and Oscar Wilde that are relevant to anyone who wants to excel as an ex tempore speaker.

Renowned as a brilliant parliamentary speaker, Bevan apparently didn't leave everything to chance. His preparations for speaking in debates apparently included anticipating the most likely Tory heckles and composing witty ripostes, just in case they happened.

I also heard it said of Oscar Wilde, originator of so many famous quotions, that he would go to parties equipped with a list of witticisms in his pocket that he could trot out if the opportunity arose.

Whether or not either of these is true, I don't know, but they do point to a practical tip that David Cameron already seems to be putting to good use.
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