"In this account of language in the wild, linguist and writer Michael Erard explains why our attention to some verbal blunders rises and falls. Why was the spoonerism named after Reverend Spooner and not some other absentminded 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, and psychologists, among others - and once you've learned what verbal blunders tell us about who we are and what we want."--Jacket.
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