the perils of accidental blending

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

    Yes, a Freudian slip is a possibility. The March 23, 2006 article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (pp. A1, 4) includes the following quote from Lenihan:  "I've never, ever really used that word in my life.  Maybe psychologically-wise deep down perhaps,but it's not how I feel."

   That's a pretty damning statement Lenihan seems to be making about himself; if the term is so offensive to him, why would he be using it "psychologically-wise deep down"?  And why include "really"  in  "I've never, ever really used that word in my life"?

     During my years of collecting  (syntactic) blends in English, I always excluded examples that struck me as possibly ambiguous.  Lenihan's possible lexical blend here (coup + boon) also seems ambiguous, and I would therefore exclude it from a reliable list of  blends..

        Gerald Cohen

        * * * * * *

        Original message from Beverly Flanigan, Saturday, March 25, 2006 7:27 PM:

> Accidental blending, or a Freudian slip?
>
> At 11:32 PM 3/23/2006, you wrote:
> >St. Louis sports radio host Dave Lenihan got fired yesterday for using the word "coon" while discussing the possibility of Condoleezza Rice
> >becoming NFL commissioner. But given the context, it seems he accidentally blended "coup" and "boon":
> >
> >"She's been chancellor at Stanford. I mean she's just got the patent resume of somebody that's got some serious skill. She loves football.
> >She's African-American, which would kind of be a big coon ... A big coon? Oh my god. I am totally, totally, totally, totally, totally sorry for that. OK? I didn't mean that. That was just a slip of the
> >tongue."
> >
> >Full story, with audio link, here:
> >http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/AD472B79A45C0CEB86257139006ED837?OpenDocument
> >
> >Bloggers are arguing quite a bit about whether the firing was justified...
> >http://google.com/blogsearch?q=lenihan
> >
> >
> >--Ben Zimmer
> >
>

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