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Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean
Pantheon
September 2007
On Sale: August 21, 2007
304 pages
ISBN: 0375423567
EAN: 9780375423567
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
Um… is about how you really speak, and why it’s normal for
your casual, everyday speech to be filled with verbal
blunders — about one in every ten words. Why do they happen?
Why can’t we control them? What can you tell about the
people who make them? In this charming, engaging account of language in the wild,
linguist and writer Michael Erard also explains why our
attention to some verbal blunders rises and falls. Why was
the spoonerism named after Reverend Spooner, not some other
absent-minded person? Where did the Freudian slip come from?
Why do we prize "umlessness" in speaking? And how do we
explain the American presidents who are famous for their
verbal blundering? You’ll have new ways to listen to yourself and others once
you’ve met the people who work with verbal blunders every
day — journalists, transcribers, interpreters, police
officers, linguists, psychologists, among others — and when
you’ve learned what verbal blunders tell about who we are
and what we want. A rich investigation of a fascinating subject, full of
entertaining examples, Um. . . is essential reading for
talkers and listeners of all stripes.
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