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Um — Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean
By Michael Erard
Pantheon, 287 pages, $24.95
After two Richard Daleys, one might observe that Chicagoans don’t need to read a book about mind-bending gaffes and mangling the English language. We could write the book. But this book of “applied blunderology” is not a list of Daleyisms — or Bushisms — but rather reveals so much about the meaning of imperfect speech that it may, um, prompt readers to reflect on their own speech — and listen more carefully to that of others.
