Linguist and writer Michael Erard joins Larry talk about how we really speak, and why it's normal for our casual, everyday speech to be filled with verbal blunders - about one in every ten words. Why do these blunders happen? Why can't we control them? What do they tell us about the people who make them? In his new book Um (Pantheon), Erard 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? Erard and Larry discuss language in the wild and how to deal with verbal blunders every day speech.
Audience-funded nonprofit news
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
-
Listen Listen