In this marvelously original book, three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Leslie Savan offers fascinating insights into why we re all talking the talk Duh; Bring it on ; Bling; Whatever and what this reveals about America today. Savan traces the paths that phrases like these travel from obscure slang to pop stardom, selling everything from cars (ads for VWs, Mitsubishis, and Mercurys all pitch them as no-brainer s) to wars (finding WMD in Iraq was to be a slam dunk ). Real people create these catchy phrases, but once media, politics, and businesses broadcast them, they burst out of...