The Science Behind 'Obama/Osama' Slips

Newscasters, headline writers and others have had quite a bit of difficulty this year distinguishing between Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama and terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden -- or at least between their names. CNN's Alina Cho and Glenn Beck have both said "Osama" when they meant "Obama," while the reverse occurred in a speech by Mitt Romney and an on-screen graphic on CNN's Situation Room.

Can anything be read into such miscues? To find out, I consulted with Michael Erard, author of Um: Slips, Stumbles and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean.

Saying "Obama" in place of "Osama," or vice versa, is what's termed a malapropism, says Erard. Malapropisms break down into two categories: phonological, or mistakes based on similar sounds, and semantic, or mistakes based on related meanings.

"Obama/Osama" is what Erard calls "a classic phonological malapropism." "Ninety-six percent of the time," he explains, "the word you intend to say and the word that actually comes out of your mouth start with the same sound, have the same number of syllables and have the same stress pattern."

In certain instances, however, semantic confusion could add to the likelihood of an unintended substitution. "Let's say I have some category in my mind of 'enemies of mine,' words that I'm going to have at the ready when I need to, in my rhetoric, drag out the boogieman." Thus, someone who saw both Osama and Obama as antagonists -- as conservatives like Romney and Beck might -- would be at heightened risk of an "Osama/Obama" malapropism (as might the editors at the right-wing New York Post, which made a similar mistake in a headline).

But semantic factors could come into play even in the minds of those who don't view Obama as a threat, notes Erard. "When we have these moments of unplanned creativity, it often involves foreign words," he says, pointing out that John Kerry mixed up "wasabi," the Japanese horseradish, with Wahhabi, the Islamic fundamentalists, in 2004. "Obama" and "Osama" are similar in that regard: "They both sort of belong to that category of "word that I have to be careful when I say them because they're not English."