During President Obama's health care summit last week, Republican House Whip Eric Cantor suffered a bit of a misspeak, saying: "We have a very difficult bridge to gap here."
a slip-up that (according to Sigmund Freud) results from the operation of unconscious wishes or conflicts and can reveal unconscious processes in normal healthy individuals
The gaffe might have pleased Cantor's opponents (one forum poster called it a "Freudian slip," figuring he must be "invested in the gap, not the bridge") — but it's actually an understandable error to make.
a minor inadvertent mistake usually observed in speech or writing or in small accidents or memory lapses etc.
Since Sentence 3 is so close to Sentence 2a (with gap standing in for cross), this expression might have also contributed to Cantor's slip-up, momentarily confusing his word choice.
the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience
Some grammatical nitty-gritty: The word it in Sentence 1 is what's known as "anticipatory it," anticipating the infinitive "to bridge the gap" later in the sentence.
Victor Steinbok, an eagle-eyed contributor to the American Dialect Society mailing list, spotted Cantor's goof right away and wondered how it would appear in the transcript.
something contrived to meet an urgent need or emergency
(An earlier version in English is "to stop a gap," which gave rise to the word stopgap, meaning "something contrived to meet an urgent need or emergency.")
Some grammatical nitty-gritty: The word it in Sentence 1 is what's known as "anticipatory it," anticipating the infinitive "to bridge the gap" later in the sentence.
Victor Steinbok, an eagle-eyed contributor to the American Dialect Society mailing list, spotted Cantor's goof right away and wondered how it would appear in the transcript.
The gaffe might have pleased Cantor's opponents (one forum poster called it a "Freudian slip," figuring he must be "invested in the gap, not the bridge") — but it's actually an understandable error to make.
So with all that bridge-crossing and bridge-burning, there are plenty of opportunities to get mentally waylaid while trying to describe political bridge-gapping, uh, gap-bridging.
gaffe
