|
|
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631
addict
|
OP
addict
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631 |
A man with a guilty conscience might momentarily mistake a stranger for his wife while entering a hotel with his mistress. The mother who is searching frantically for her missing child at a crowded department store and mistakes an unknown child for her own has almost become a cliche.
On the pattern of lapsus calami and lapsus linguae, is there a term for these revealing "slips of the eye"?
Last edited by Hydra; 09/12/07 05:52 AM.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
Lapsus oculi is, alas, something else: when a writer skips over a word or more when copying some text. (And, the learnèd Latinate plural of lapsus is lapsūs, because it's a fourth declension noun like apparatus.) Perhaps one cold use: mistaken identity?
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631
addict
|
|
OP
addict
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631 |
Mistaken identity doesn't quite convey the idea.
Olafson says that "perceptual error has a surprising resemblance to veridical perception." That more what I mean—a kind of ocular parapraxis.
Probably the concept is too tenuous.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Um...shot in the dark here, Hydra, but it sounds like it could be that what you're talking about is more to do with the mind than the eye: that what is in our thoughts tends to "appear" in a host of things. Occurrences, conversations, etc. during the day sometimes influence what we dream at night; if you're at that "mad" stage of love, then the whole world is rosy, and every other girl is at least semi-consciously compared to your sweetie, etc.; my son drove for a private ambulance company this summer--although I had seen their ambulances around town before, this summer for the first time I saw them wherever I went!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 120
member
|
|
member
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 120 |
'Mental Radar' is the term I've heard used to describe a similar phenomena. I notice it with cars more than anything--I was looking to buy a car, and looked at Saturns. Suddenly it seemed like the roads and parking lots were crammed with nothing else, I saw them everywhere. The numbers didn't change, I just suddenly noticed them.
tempus edax rerum
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
and *that I've seen referred to, specifically, as the "Red Car Syndrome."
-joe (just the carfax) friday
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 1,773 |
Hydra: You might try entering in OneLook's Reverse Dictionary, something like
wishful mistake
...though if the answer is in there somewhere, you'll find 999 that aren't
Using its "contact us" link, Join me in my crusade to persuade OneLook to provide fewer but more pertinent responses
dalehileman
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154 |
Occular is specifically the eye but visual involves the brain as well which is more to do with the phenomenon you describe. What about visual parapraxis?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631
addict
|
|
OP
addict
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631 |
True, but I guess "eye" is being used here synecdochically. After all, the same thing could be said of "slip of the tongue": It's not really the tongue that slips, but our conscious editorship of unconscious thoughts.
But I like "visual parapraxis".
Thanks Zed.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 1,529
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 1,529 |
"visual parapraxis"? Hardly. In fact it is just the opposite. Think about it...who is driving your car while you are talking to your girlfriend on your cellphone while eating fresh and gooey Kryspy Kreme donuts while, at the same time, you are listening attentively to your car radio as Rush Limbaugh exposes the evil designs of knee-jerk liberals? Let me give you a hint...it ain't you!  tick-tock...tick-tock...tick-tock... I'll give you all a minute or two to guess and then I'll return and give the answer.
Last edited by themilum; 09/14/07 12:32 AM.
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,372
Members9,182
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
767
guests, and
1
robot. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
