Slip Number 2025-3
Date: January 9, 2025

• Utterance: Leave those onions away!
• Target: Either
  Leave those onions alone!
  or Put those onions away!
• Context: The student shouted this at her cat as it dove into a bag of produce.
• Discussion: First, yes, an error spoken to a cat matters: just as does all conversation: catward or otherwise.

  Those suggested targets sound ok, but 'get away from those onions' would be better? It's hard to imagine a cat putting away onions, but the 'away' is at the end of the possible target so does that make more sense?

  Besides that trouble, this almost sounds ok; it actually sounds kind of poetic (to me, anyway). But, key here is that the speaker FELT that it was an error, and the speaker's perception is important data.

  Here is a gratuitous pic of my studio cat, Mu... who would never assault an onion.
  
  (Caption: smol black and white kitty curled up tight!)