Page:Freud - Wit and its relation to the unconscious.djvu/80

 However, the technique of the wit lies in the displacement of the emphasis from “to bathe” to “to take.”

Let us return to the example “salmon with mayonnaise,” which is the purest of its kind. What is new in it will direct us into various paths. In the first place we have to give the mechanism of this newly discovered technique. I propose to designate it as having displacement for its most essential element. The deviation of the trend of thought consists in displacing the psychic accent to another than the original theme. It is then incumbent upon us to find out the relationship of the technique of displacement to the expression of the witticism. Our example (salmon with mayonnaise) shows us that the displacement technique is absolutely independent of the verbal expression. It does not depend upon words, but upon the mental trend, and to abrogate it we are not helped by substitution so long as the sense of the answer is adhered to. The reduction is possible only when we change the mental