Um...: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean Sharon Van Ivan Cotton triggered the migrations of

Cotton triggered the migrations of millions of blacks and poor whites

and won the 2013 Montanas Literature Prize

Paula's mind raced: Adoption is not happening I'm too old

violent landscape of West Texas

Writers face many questions and choices in their work

Um...: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean Sharon Van Ivan Cotton triggered the migrations ofThis original, entertaining, and surprising book investigates verbal blunders: what they are, what they say about those who make them, and how and why we've come to judge them. Um is about how you really speak, and why it's normal for your everyday speech to be filled with errors about one in every ten words. In this charming, engaging account of language in the wild, linguist and writer Michael Erard also explains why our attention to some blunders