For a brief moment, the world thought that Donald Trump had renamed the United Nations when he called them the Unated Nations during his speech to the General Assembly. This slip of the tongue occurred due to ‘anticipation’ which is when a segment downstream takes the place of a segment upstream. In this case the /i/ vowel in ‘United’ was replaced /a/ vowel of ‘Nations’ to produce ‘Unated’. See line 05 below:
Donald Trump 01 Rocket man (.) is on a suicide mission for himself 02 and for his regime 03 the United States is ready (.) willing and able 04 but hopefully (.) this will not be necessary 05 that’s what the Unated Nations (.) is all about 06 that’s what (.) the United Nations is for 07 let’s see how they do
The brief pause at the end of the line is interesting. Normally when a speech error is made, a speaker will go back and repair the error. In this case, Trump decided not to do so, possibly because it formed part of parallel clause with line 06. In 06 he managed to get the right pronunciation for the ‘United Nations’ out which made the slip of the tongue in 05 all the more obvious.
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