Subject: re : 6 . 249 dick armey 's slip and correction

could someone provide the context for dick armey 's utterance of " barney fag " ? i only heard it once and did n't write it down . my impression at the time , however , was that the phonological environment did n't seem quite right for a spoonerism . one other thought : it seems that a binary opposition between an intentional slur on armey 's part and a purely phonological slip does n't represent all the possibilities . it 's certainly possible that if the string " barney fag " has been used often enough on capitol hill in the hearing of dick armey , he might very well have inadvertently substituted it for frank 's actual name . is n't that something that 's done all the time : accidentally saying something that one has heard recently or repeatedly . " can't get that tune out of my head ! " seems like a reasonable explanation for a " slip " that was n't a spoonerism . anything on non-spoonerism phonological slips out there that bears on this ? phil gaines
