· Death in Venice ® deaf in Venice

· I'm getting married next week ® I'm getting buried next week

substitutions are rarer in stressed vowels, but they do occur:

· wrapping service ® wrecking service

One interesting aspect of slips of the ear is that they may be nonsensical, but they're always grammatical:

· it'll be done next year ® it'll be done in six years

In this example, the listener supplied the 'in' and 's' plural morpheme to syntactically accomodate the "next" which had been misheard as "six".

Listeners may also delete segments of misheard speech:

· he got ten years in prison ® he got tenure in prison

Or they may simply add segments:

· Chomsky was the most literate ® Chomsky was the most illiterate

· bear country ® Erica

· coke and a Danish ® coconut Danish

· ketchup ® a chip

· a linguini is a noodle ® a lean Wheatie is a noodle

· new dimensions ® nude mentions

· I need a loose crew ® I need a loose screw

Note that word boundary shifts always result in a syntactically appropriate misperception.

· some sealing tape ® some ceiling paint

· Friar Tuck Pizza ® Kentucky Fried Pizza

· I seem to be thirsty ® I sing through my green Thursday

· College Outline Grammar of French ® how to jabber in French

· the mythology course is the pull course in Classics ® the cool course

· it's hard to hear the difference between f and th over a phone ® what's a thone?

Some other examples:

1. you are a butterfly ® you are a fudge pie
2. there's a bad moon on the rise ® there's a bathroom on the right
3. I'll never be your beast of burden ® I'll never be your pizza burnin'
4. I'm going to brush my teeth ® I'm going to flash my teeth
5. Do we have any bay leaves? ® Do we have any Bailey's?

Slips of the ear are always phonologically appropriate.

But a child can misperceive phonologically inappropriate words:

· Mother: Natives of New Guinea go out lumbering every day.

Child: What's tlumbering, Mommy?