Michael Erard
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"Um the Book"
Like any writer who wonders how his work is doing in the commercial world, I keep my eye on Um’s Amazon rankings, where I see that the hardcover is outselling the paperback. I know why that’s attractive: it’s a bit cheaper, plus it’s a hardcover, which projects the bookish essence of the book. You get [...]
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Last week I appeared with Ammon Shea at Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut, reading and talking about books. (He talked about his, me mine. Maybe next time we can swap.) His is a word book: he spent a year reading the Oxford English Dictionary. But it’s not a word book like a lexicographer [...]
Continue Reading →Misty, meaning to say “rural or urban,” instead saying “url and — ” and stopping short of “url and burban.”
Continue Reading →I am obliged to quote from today’s NYT report from the Harry Potter lexicon trial:
It was an emotional culmination to three hours of testimony in which Mr. Vander Ark gushed over Ms. Rowling and her work like the devoted fan that he claimed to be, and disarmingly preceded almost every answer to a question [...]
Continue Reading →Yes, yes, yes: Um… has the answers (and more!), if you’re asking questions about these topics:
born malapropisms 1844 william spooner
brain lesions what do they mean
bush bloopers speach only a mother would give
Bush’s verbal and grammatical lapses 2001
calvin coolidge speaking mannerism
calvin coolidge speech impediment
calvin coolidge verbal
biography of rev. [...]
Continue Reading →Geoff Nunberg talked about “um” — and mentioned my book, Um… — on Fresh Air yesterday; the text of his piece is here.
He invents a term that I particular like: the “umological paradox,” which is that why is a word that’s communicatively so useful routinely so criticized and battered? I think I provided [...]
Continue Reading →Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo is a serious, thoughtful guy — which is probably why the blooper and outtake reel from TPMtv is one of the more popular ever. Maybe it’s wouldn’t be so funny if he didn’t look like a slim Ricky Gervais.
Continue Reading →Interesting comment from here about how McCain’s campaign placed teleprompters so he would look more natural giving a speech:
I wish that once, just once, the cameras would show us what is really going on in these rooms. It would both legitimate and honest to show the candidate making a speech AND the teleprompters [...]
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At a Superbowl party, I met a psychiatrist who asked me (we were talking about Um…) if I believed in the unconscious. If you mean the semiotic detritus of life that’s lying around and can be borrowed, deployed, or shanghaied for acts of interpretation, sure, I replied (or something like that — it was the [...]
Continue Reading →Discovered the new motto for Um… in Donna Haraway’s new book, When Species Meet:
Making mistakes is inevitable and not particularly illuminating; making mistakes interesting is what makes the world new.
Continue Reading →Just found out that an upper division cognitive psych class at Allegheny College is using Um… as a textbook. Watch undergrads blog about Um… here! If you’re a high school teacher or college professor and want to use Um… as a textbook, get in touch with me; Random House will provide desk review copies, [...]
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