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Um. . .: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean

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Optical illusions are fascinating, because we all, at some level, think that seeing is believing, and are amazed to find in how many ways our eyes can be fooled. They are not just amusements, however; in the past few decades, neurological researchers have used the mistaken impressions such illusions give us to look deeply into the parts of our brains that process visual data. The neuronal machinery that makes the errors thereby reveals what it is silently doing when it is doing its usual error-free processing. Similarly, over the past few decades, speech errors have been harnessed to help understand the almost infinitely complex process it takes to make a sentence. That is one of the fascinating points in _Um... : Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean_ (Pantheon) by Michael Erard. Erard, who has an academic background in linguistics and English, is a freelance writer who has looked into what you might think of as a pretty limited field even for professor types. People say "um" a lot, and they mix up their word pronunciations and sentence structure. We generally ignore such flaws, no matter how universal they may be, and in fact we may be programmed to ignore them. Still, if they are universal, they must be mean something. Erard has wandered all over to visit researchers who are each looking deeply into a specific area of linguistic mistakes and bringing forth a new understanding of how language works. The result is an entertaining book that can only make readers appreciate how complicated spoken language is, and admire how it usually goes fluently.

What do all these "ums" mean? Not anxiety. One of the earliest products of "disfluency research" was that the number of filler words has no correlation with the level of anxiety. It might be that "um" isn't an error, but a means that a speaker has of signaling a listener that a delay is coming, perhaps a hunt for an important word or concept, and in this way the speaker is inviting the listener to keep up with not only the stream of thought but the process of thinking. If "um" plays a linguistic role, then perhaps it is not really an error, and Erard documents that there was no campaign to eliminate "um" until the early twentieth century. The book's subtitle hints that there is more to it than just "um", and there is much more, starting with an amusing portrait of the 19th-century Oxford don Rev. William Archibald Spooner who was famous for transposing word sounds. "You have tasted a worm", he is supposed to have said, when he wished to say, "You have wasted a term." Many of his supposed sayings he didn't say at all, and many of his colleagues said they never heard any. People have made vast lists of spoonerisms (as they have of every other sort of verbal error), and the lists reflect that something orderly is going on even in such a verbal pratfall. In verbal slips, we are more likely to fluff the initial sound, for instance, and the initial syllable of a word, and the syllable that gets the emphasis. If we misspeak and insert a wrong word, it is not likely to be a nonsense word, and we almost always insert a noun for a noun, a verb for a verb, and so on. Freudian slips are covered here, but researchers are demonstrating that these mistakes are a linguistic, rather than a neurotic, manifestation.

Erard covers a pleasing range of language gaffs, and part of the appeal of the book is that everyone will recognize the errors he describes. Erard covers the career of Kermit Schaefer, who did not invent the term "blooper", but who collected enough funny radio and television mistakes to became the "King of Bloopers", and to make a fortune on how much we enjoy the amusing verbal mistakes of people who use language professionally. He tells of the research of Stanford's Arnold Zwicky on "eggcorns", a term which unites "egg" and "corn" for a malapropism for "acorn". Like "very close veins" for "varicose veins", these are slips of the tongue that have become ossified so that the individual using the term thinks it is correct. In Shanghai, Erard visits the company Saybot which makes software to help Chinese keep from mangling English. An enjoyable penultimate chapter is wickedly called "President Blunder", but is actually pretty gentle on the famous gaffes of George W. Bush. No one knows, for instance, if the president who is famous for such sayings as "You're working hard to keep food on your family" actually makes more verbal errors than any of his predecessors, or more than other people in general. Erard points out that it is fundamentally wrong to criticize "how smart or competent or moral a person is because he or she doesn't speak like you do" but on the other hand it is wrong to praise the authenticity of error-prone speech when the excellence of error-free speech is an ideal (if unattainable) goal. The surprise is that if we magically managed to eliminate all our errors of speaking, we would lose this window into the mysterious inner workings of our capacity for language.

This excellent book separates itself from the 'tut tut' school of writing. If you like "Eats, Shoots and Leaves", you probably will not like this book. "Um..." is short on indignation and rich in facts.

Erard, the author, makes his case that verbal errors are part of the language. Just yesterday, I heard a BBC commentary state that 'this is a bridge we will have to gulf'. Erard starts with Spooner (now that you are jawfully loined) and shows the development of a theory of slips of the tongue and other, um, errors.

This is a serious linguistic work. If you enjoy indignation at 'these degenerate days', read D-ck C-v-tt and his ilk.

Michael Erard provides an entertaining tour of common speech errors that ought to interest teachers, business people, or anyone whose interest is oral communication. Most people value the ability to speak smoothly, to pronounce words correctly, and to communicate thoughts clearly. Schools consider fluent speaking to be an important goal of instruction. Business leaders say that good verbal skills, the ability to get to the point, close the deal, or persuade is essential for success. Oral English fluency is an ideal in the United States. Nativist groups have tried and failed more than once to make English the national language. As the United States evolves into a richly diverse multilingual patchwork of communities, there is more and more concern with communication. Millions, if not hundreds of millions of public and private dollars are spent each year in pursuit of smooth talk.

Erard recognizes the aspirations of English teachers and business leaders, but suggests their goals may be permanently out of our reach. Even the best rehearsed actor makes occasional slips. To err is human. Speech is necessarily broken, punctuated by hesitation, delays, multiple starts, slips of the tongue, bloopers, slips and blunders. Electrical shock, beer, and Toastmasters can help to reduce, although not to eliminate the "mistakes."

Freud saw human errors, slips of the tongue, as peep-holes into the unconscious. Dark, unappeasable drives for pleasure and pain inevitably push through the veneer of civilization to hint at thoughts we are scarcely willing to tell ourselves. Freud's insights established the profession of psychoanalysis that thrives by listening for unintended meanings in speech. Erard considers the psychoanalytic perspective and discards it in favor of more parsimonious explanations offered by linguists and cognitive psychologists, supported by more objective research methods.

Cognitive theory suggests that thinking, speaking, and the translation of thought into speech are different processes. Parallel processing is hard. Errors arise when these processes bump into each other. The errors provide clues about the elementary mechanisms, inputs and outputs of the processes. Like a pilot on a transcontinental flight, Erard surveys the scientific territory from 30,000 feet, making what could have been a dusty exercise in map reading into something more entertaining. It helps that slips of the tongue are innately humorous. Spoonerisms, malapropisms, mondegreens, and eggcorns, are fun, in addition to what they tell linguists. Readers with literary interests, may also notice that writers use slips as an ingredient of authentic or colloquial dialogue.

Erard points out that speaking naturally has persuasive potential. The smooth tongued, oily orator sounds insincere. The person who hesitates, repeats and slips while getting the message across sounds genuine, trustworthy, and thoughtful. Hollywood actors cultivate authenticity. TV commercials show actors who talk like "us." Corporate CEOs and presidents cultivate a folksy, shambling, heartfelt style. Detractors and language purists may see ignorance or corruption of language, but the public feels warmth and trust. Cynics admire a new way of conducting business as usual.

Michael Erard's terrific new book, "Um", covers everything from spoonerisms and malapropisms to eggcorns and mondegreens. If you haven't heard of the last two, they're covered here with aplomb (a plum?) as are dozens of examples of pause fillers. Since George Bush seems to have increased his summer reading over the past few years, this is one book the president shouldn't miss...he may be part of the impetus for its publication.

Ever since a friend of mine asked me at dinner years ago, "when will our waiter soove the serp?", I've been fascinated by the oddities that fly from innocent mouths. Erard categorizes these verbal miscues into all sorts of arrangements and a glossary at the end of the book is helpful in reminding the reader what material has been covered. The author looks at two areas that were of particular interest...how slips of the tongue differ in other languages and cultures and how children handle pauses and perseverations (for example) at various stages of their fluency development.

Erard has a clear and nicely-paced narrative style making "Um" such an enjoyable book. An appealing sequel would be one that comments on the three current presidential candidates and their varying contributions to public discourse, relative to what the author has written here. The next time I have my own slip of the ear (as when I heard someone say "grocery seats" when they meant "gross receipts") I'll refer back to "Um" and have a good laugh all over again.

Either high school or college-level literary libraries or those strong in psychology and language will find UM an excellent survey which considers the verbal blunder and its underlying psychology. With its strong introduction in the history of language and disfluency from ancient Greece to modern times to its survey of how slips of the tongue gained new meaning from psychology, both popular culture and literature figure in a survey which is a funny yet pointed study of everyday speech and language development. Both leisure readers and students of language alike will find it engrossing.

Anyone who cares about language and speaking will enjoy this book. Erard
presents the latest scientific thought on the meaning of blunders in
speech, but in a lively style that engages and entertains. He covers not
only pause fillers, like the one he has enshrined in his two-letter title,
but also slips (Freudian and otherwise), spoonerisms, malapropisms,
sentence repairs and restarts, the Bloopers immortalized by Kermit Schafer
and those unintentional bits of comic relief that graced the speeches of
George W. Bush. The book is in various parts history, introduction to
linguistics and journalistic narrative.

Here are just a few of the surprises that struck me. Our disdain for "uh",
"um" and similar pause fillers in speech is a recent thing, probably mainly
the result of the invention of audio recording and radio. Thomas
Jefferson, one of the most eloquent writers of his day, was a lousy public
speaker. Most pause fillers and other speech disfluencies go unnoticed,
and this is especially so when the speaker is saying something interesting
or engaging. Here's a striking example, not from the book but from my own
experience: I just noticed a speech disfluency of the sentence repair type
in M.L. King's "I have a dream" speech. It's barely noticeable, a trivial
ripple in the tsunami of oratorical power that is that speech. If you've
never noticed it and are curious: "When we allow freedom ring... when we
let it ring..."

Erard's advice to those who worry about botching a speech: be interesting!

A recurring theme throughout the book is that pause fillers have meaning
and serve a useful purpose. They tell the listener something about what is
going on in the mind of the speaker: that the sentence is not yet finished,
or that the subject is difficult and demands effort (in speaking and
listening), or that a change in emphasis or subject is coming, or that the
speaker has detected an error and is struggling to fix it.

I recently encountered a practical example of this. I was putting together
for my family a video about our mother. For part of the sound track I
wanted to use an old audio recording of her telling her life story. She
tends to wander in her speech and go off on tangents that lead nowhere, so
I had to do some digital audio editing. In one of those places the edited
version contained a transition, a slight change of subject, that sounded
glaringly unnatural and obviously edited. From another part of the
recording I snipped out one of her "But um..." pause fillers and dropped it
into that awkward transition, and POOF! The awkwardness vanished. I doubt
I would have thought of that trick had I not read this book.

Because I'm always interested in books about language, I certainly enjoyed this but it's a light read, not one that will shed amazing new insights on the subject. His best points really have to do with the necessity for pauses and fillers, taking away the stigma of the "er-rors."

I was expecting this to be written from a less clinical tone, and was wrong.

Chapters start off with substance, then quickly derail into extended babble about one particular aspect. Example: Do I really need to read chapters worth about Freud?

Got boring way too quick, and was simply a very dry, uninviting read.

I don't think this book provides a very meaningful discussion on the psychological meaning behind slips, stumbles, and verbal blunders, but it does offer up an interesting perusal of the literature on the subject. The tale of Reverend Spooner and his Spoonerisms was intriguing as was Sigmund Freud and his theory of, not slips, but "faulty performance." As a figure, Rudolf Meringer was even more interesting and I had never heard of him before opening Um. His battle with Freud was a highlight of these pages. The truth lies somewhere in between these two men and their theories. Some of the information was quite illuminating such as the average human speaking between 7,500 and 22,500 words a day. I also appreciated the section on George Mahl. Overall though, this book gives an overview and tour more than it does penetrating analysis of verbal misstatements.

Um. . . entertained and educated me. Anytime you can do both at the same time is an accomplishment. Fortunately, this very readable book by Michael Erard does not come off as stuffy in any way. And it doesn't make one self-conscious, as in the nervous equivalent of crossing and uncrossing one's legs or readjusting one's posture in front of a psychoanalyst. (I can report that seeing a shrink is not really like that anyway, not after the first 877 visits.)

When I was a copy editor at a newspaper, I remember an editor telling me, after I corrected someone's spoken solecism, "Don't edit speech." Wise advice.

Um...The Book takes the reader through a pleasurable stroll through several leafy jungles you wouldn't think had connecting paths: pop culture, anthropology, linguistics, epistemology, psychology, history (...and more! as copywriters shout). (As I have noted before, the book's subtitle, "Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean," embraces the serial comma, as does the narrative. Merci, Mr. Erard and editors.)

The book's website invites examples from readers. I dare not submit this one of my own, because it's more dementia than blunder: I once introduced myself at a serious business function, in front of a large crowd, with the prefatory "His Lord and Eminence" before my name. I don't know what came over me.

I like the fact that the author takes on Herr Dr. Freud and explains how the term "Freudian slip" has taken on a life all its own never intended.

I learned about spoonerisms, powerless vs. powerful speaking, and tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon.

I'm, um, thinking that at the office holiday gala, with my bow tie on and pinkie out, I'll try to impress someone (well, someone with ample cleavage, of course) by breezily dropping terms like parapraxis (or parapraxes, plural) or Fehlleistung (Fehlleistungen). The German is literally "faulty performance." The hope is I'll be referring conversationally to language or memory, not some other kind of, um, "performance."

I've had a fussy awareness of these things even before I read the book (evidently, that's why my friend from WebPros sent it to me), so today it was amusing to hear a public official say at a forum several times: "flush it out" instead of "flesh it out." (Well, he was referring to an aqueduct.) (I once knew a colleague who thought "flesh it out" was too meaty and gross an expression, and she wasn't even a vegan!)