Misspeaking is a word used to describe the act of speaking "incorrectly, unclearly, or misleadingly", to "fail to convey the meaning one intends by one's words". Although its roots lie in Middle English and earlier, since the 1980s the word has used increasingly in politics to imply that errors made by a speaker are accidental and should not be construed as a deliberate attempt to misrepresent the facts of a case.