# Mortifying slips of the tongue.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mortifying-slips-of-the-tongue/614750
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [March 4, 2012, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mortifying-slips-of-the-tongue/614750 "2012-03-04T21:19:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 6
### Author:  [@Jasper\_Kent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasper_Kent)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2012, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mortifying-slips-of-the-tongue/614750/101 "2012-03-19T16:54:55Z")
**brittekland** – It’s no wonder you mispeak if you use sentences like this:
“But then I’m a professional slip-of-tonguer. It would be a real thick book to tell all of my social bloopers.”
When I read that, it got garbled in my _ **brain’s voice.** _
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2012, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mortifying-slips-of-the-tongue/614750/102 "2012-03-20T19:01:15Z")
I once began to use one of my favorite analogies in a conversation, the Indian story of the [blind men and the elephant.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant) Too late I remembered one of my audience had been blind from birth. Somehow the analogy didn’t seem to have the impact I wanted.
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### Author:  [@brittekland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brittekland)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2012, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mortifying-slips-of-the-tongue/614750/103 "2012-03-20T22:29:33Z")
> [@Jasper\_Kent](#):
>
> **brittekland** – It’s no wonder you mispeak if you use sentences like this:
> “But then I’m a professional slip-of-tonguer. It would be a real thick book to tell all of my social bloopers.”
>
> When I read that, it got garbled in my _ **brain’s voice.** _
I never promised you a rose garden.
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### Author:  [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2012, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mortifying-slips-of-the-tongue/614750/104 "2012-03-22T13:45:15Z")
I just got back from withdrawing $60 from the teller because the ATM was offline. I hope that the rather busty teller doesn’t realize where my mind was when she asked how I wanted the money and I said, “A pair of tens, please.”
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### Author:  [@Roads\_Scholar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roads_Scholar)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2012, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mortifying-slips-of-the-tongue/614750/105 "2012-03-22T18:06:22Z")
The day after my husband’s birthday, he and I and our young daughter attended an office party. One of the other guests happened to be celebrating a birthday that day, and all activity and conversation ceased when this person was given a gift and wished a happy birthday. My daughter turned to me and asked, “Where’s daddy’s present?” I replied, “Daddy got his present last night.”
You can imagine the uproar…
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### Author:  [@Corner\_Case](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corner_Case)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2012, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mortifying-slips-of-the-tongue/614750/106 "2012-03-22T21:09:38Z")
In third grade I was the class clown. It was spring. I was always interrupting and making jokes. One day I passed by the world map. Looking at the African countries I pointed and said, “Hey look, Niger”. I froze.
My next memory is winter and hunting for math flash cards. I’ve been working on not being introverted for decades.
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### Author:  [@Eliot\_Ness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eliot_Ness)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2012, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mortifying-slips-of-the-tongue/614750/107 "2012-03-22T21:37:24Z")
I’d just joined a new expanding firm as VP, and the woman manning the front desk and typing our letters was the President’s wife. A couple of days later it was secretary’s day so I bought her a small planterbox with a fern. She was insulted, called hubby over and confronted me, saying she was not a secretary, with him trying not to step on either of our toes. So I apologized and asked what her title was. Mollified a bit, she said they hadn’t picked one yet, what could I suggest. I thought of Executive Assistant, but decided that was too tame and said Majordomo, Chief of Staff. She had never heard the term (fortunately he had) and thought I was saying Major Dummy. After lunch she cooled down and thanked me for the fern. After that always avoided being in the office on secretary’s day.
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### Author:  [@jabiru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabiru)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2012, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mortifying-slips-of-the-tongue/614750/108 "2012-03-23T01:19:53Z")
Not exactly a slip of the tongue.
I was at a meet-the-baby morning tea we were having for a colleague. Said new baby was being passed around for cuddles and I was there with my brand new dSLR, taking photos of everyone and everything. Baby got passed to Penny, directly across the table from me, so a bit close for my 50mm lens.
“I really need a wider lens” is what I said when I should have said, “this lens is too long”. :o
She forgave me.
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### Author:  [@PeriDoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PeriDoe)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2012, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mortifying-slips-of-the-tongue/614750/109 "2012-04-04T04:34:14Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#):
>
> When asked what type of soda I wanted with my burrito at Taco Bell,
> I replied in a too loud voice, “Doctor Pecker”.
>
> I got some funny looks and had my colleague laughing his ass off.
> When I was 13, I was in Germany visiting relatives. They took us to a festival, where they had rides, etc. There was a shooting gallery. Cheap prizes were attached to sticks of wax; shoot the wax, the prize falls, and its yours. I had just got a new eyeglass prescription and my brain hadn’t quite made the adjustment (my field of view had a distinct fishbowl appearance.). Consequently my mother just shrugged at my attempt to win a post card of a hot nude girl on a beach.
>
> The first shot - I break the wax.
> I yell out in German what I thought was “Mom, I shot the naked lady!”
> What I actually yelled out was “Mon, I shitted the naked lady!”
> The surrounding crowd pretty much roared with laughter; my mother was mortified; my aunt and my cousin were highly amused.
Ha! I was going to post about the time I asked for “green peckers” on my Subway sandwich.
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### Author:  [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2012, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mortifying-slips-of-the-tongue/614750/110 "2012-04-04T23:29:09Z")
Not so much a slip of the tongue; more something that I just shouldn’t have said:
I was playing in a medieval recorder group and we were preparing to put on a concert where we’d play three dance pieces, back to back to back, without breaking in between: Trenchmore, Female Sailor and Hole in the Wall (trust me, they’re really popular, well-known dances). I had an epiphany and said, "Hey, in the program, we can call this one “Trench the Female Hole!”
The other players in the group (all ladies in their 50’s) were not so impressed.
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