Misfires

A category of Austin's conditions of felicity in his speech act theory. A misfire is a breach of the conventional of cultural procedures necessary to the accomplishment of the performance. If a breach of this type occurs, the performance will fail. Austin distinguishes misfires from abuses, which are breaches of a different kind; in which a performance might not be described as quite failing, but is still infelicitous or unhappy.

See Felicity/Infelicities