Writers & Readers: Wordly
Thursday, January 22, 2009
7 PM reception; 7:30 readings; Q & A After
Hartford, Connecticut - Real Art Ways presents Wordly, an investigation into the sometimes obsessive relationship writers have to words. Wordly is part of the Writers & Readers series, gatherings for everybody who loves words and ideas. Ammon Shea, who read the entire Oxford English Dictionary (all 22,000 pages!) and Michael Erard, author of Um...: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders and What They Mean, will read at 7:30 PM on Thursday, January 22. Come early for a reception at 7 PM; stay after for an informal discussion with the authors. Admission is $5, free for Real Art Ways members. Real Art Ways is located at 56 Arbor Street in Hartford’s Parkville neighborhood. For more information, visit realartways.org or call 860.232.1006.
Ammon Shea was uniquely prepared to undertake the task of reading the Oxford English Dictionary, having previously read Merriam Webster’s Third International Dictionary in its entirety. Although Reading the OED is organized into chapters based on an alphabetical list of interesting words (such as Petrichor(n) “the pleasant loamy smell of rain on the ground, especially after a dry spell.” Or Bayard(n) “a person armed with the self-confidence of ignorance”), it also tells the story of what happened to Shea during his undertaking, including one particularly alarming moment when, for several hours, Shea’s vision turned grey.
Michael Erard will read from Um...: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean as well as from his new work on language superlearners. Um… is not a guide to oration, nor is it a condemnation of those who are blunder prone:
I wrote Um... because I wanted to know what normal speaking is actually like, and I wanted to talk to people who worked with verbal blunders as a part of their daily lives … people whose first reaction to verbal blunders wasn’t to laugh at them, eliminate them, or denigrate people who made them. Along the way, I learned that the earliest recorded word of Thomas Edison’s that still exists is “uh,” that children begin making slips of the tongue at 18 months, and that Kermit Schafer’s tv and radio bloopers are still pretty funny.
– Michael Erard
After the readings, Shea and Erard will hang around to answer audience questions and discuss all things wordly.
Ammon Shea
Michael Erard
Real Art Ways is supported by Real Art Ways Members,
The National Endowment for the Arts, The Warhol Foundation,
The Wallace
Foundation, The Greater Hartford
Arts Council,
The Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, and
The Hartford
Foundation
for
Public Giving.
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