A Freudian Grip and the Question of Originality

There is nothing more purely entertaining than sitting around, laughing, chatting, saying something clever and witty, and thinking you have come up with something new.

. . . and then there is nothing more disappointing than realizing your cleverness is not all that original because someone else has come up with it first.

Case in point? A little discussion I had the other night. In a silly exchange I posited, “What does one call it when someone makes a gestural Freudian slip?” You know what I mean: an accidental graze of another person’s anatomical part. (Perhaps not so accidental if you are a creepy old man.) We could only presume that there must be some description of such a phenomenon! The obvious term, of course, was Freudian grip. Having never heard the term before, we rejoiced in our inventive wittiness.

Then, of course, a craving for further knowledge reared its ugly head and a Google search ensued.

I took what I considered to be a logical approach and did a Google search for “gestural Freudian slip.” The search results were not very helpful. There was a random smattering of topics including George Bush, some Second Life thing, and a few blogs. I did a bit of actual research and, apparently, a gesture falls within the traditional definition of Freudian slip.

But what about the oh-so-much cleverer term Freudian grip? Surely the genius of the phrase should not be lost to the world! So, on a lark, I did a Google search of Freudian grip. Much to my surprise, results abounded for the term I thought we had just created! The results included some highly suggestive photos, a comic art piece, and several results related to Freud. But not Mr. Sigmund Freud! In a dramatic twist, I came to find many of the results relating to Freudian grip led to figurative painter Lucian Freud, one of Sigmund’s grandsons. I drew some relief in noting that none of the results exhibited the connotation or definition of our invention. But still, Freudian grip was clearly nothing new.

This information chasing led me to realize how hard it is to be original in an age where so much knowledge is so easily accessed. How does the ease of accessing information affect our modern conceptions of originality? Am I any less original or creative for having thought of something on my own if it has already been conceived?

At any rate, next time you quite unknowingly find your hand nudging an unseemly bodily nook or cranny call it what it is: a Freudian grip.