My idiolect and childhood misconceptions: added 2025-12-28

Idiolect

Added a few more things to my idiolect page:

In "other":

• It can sometimes be hard for me to tell apart /mət/ vs. /mənt/, and /nət/ vs. /nənt/ in unstressed syllables; I might pronounce them the same (I assume this has to do with the schwa getting nasalized). Also I think I might sometimes pronounce might as /maɪnt/, with an extra /n/.
• Rhymes and puns that depend on non-rhotic accents (at least/especially involving /ɔː/, e.g. doors vs. (Santa) Claus, where the vowel is also very different in my dialect) don't work for me, even if I hear them spoken by someone with an accent where they work. I think my brain sort of "corrects" it to my accent, so I hear the words as different even though they're being said the same.

Specific words:

• comfortable /ˈkʌmf.tɚ.bl̩/ ("comfterble", with a pronounced r and metathesis)
• onomatopoeia /ɑn.ə.mɑn.ə.ˈpi.ə/ (maybe the ns are actually some sort of nasalized flap or something? in any case, the ono and mato parts rhyme.)
• route: either /ˈɹaʊt/ or /ˈɹut/ for the noun, but only /ˈɹaʊt/ for the verb (and therefore only /ˈɹaʊt.ɚ/ for "router"; might also be a preference for /ˈɹaʊt/ for the computer meaning)
• #include, #define, etc. (in C and C++): "number include", "number define" (at least that's how I tend to say it in my head)
• 101 (as a number): "one hundred and one" or maybe sometimes "one hundred one" (from my experience the no-"and" thing, which I usually hear described as a US vs. UK thing, is a prescriptivist thing; i.e., I initially learned it with the "and" and then in school they told us not to use "and")

I also added a section "Words I used to pronounce certain ways". These are words where I learned one pronunciation first (when I was really young), and then a different pronunciation later (usually the later one is closer to the spelling). In some cases I'm not sure which pronunciation I'd use if I were talking now (some might be in free variation now). (Some of these were previously in the big "specific words" list; others are new.)

• birthday: initially /ˈbɚθ.eɪ/ (didn't pronounce the d), now /ˈbɚθ.deɪ/
• camouflage: initially /ˈkæm.l̩.flaɪdʒ/ ("camel flige"), now /ˈkæm.oʊ.flɑʒ/ or /ˈkæm.ə.flɑʒ/
• clothes: initially /kloʊz/ (homophone of the verb close), now /kloʊðz/ (though I might still use /kloʊz/ sometimes)
• crayon: /ˈkɹaʊn/ (homophone of crown, or at least people around me pronounced it that way), now /ˈkɹeɪ.ɑn/
• measure, treasure: initially /ˈmæʒ.ɚ/, /ˈtɹæʒ.ɚ/, now maybe /ˈmɛʒ.ɚ/, /ˈtɹɛʒ.ɚ/ (but pleasure has always been /ˈplɛʒ.ɚ/, so initially measure didn't rhyme with pleasure)
• milk: initially /ˈmɛlk/ ("melk"), now maybe /ˈmɪlk/ due to the spelling (but silk and ilk have always been /-ɪlk/ for me, meaning they didn't rhyme with milk)
• mirror: initially /mɪɹ/ (one syllable, homophone of mere), now /ˈmɪɹ.ɚ/ (rhymes with nearer); terror and horror I'm pretty sure I've always used two syllables
• (lawn) mower: initially /moɹ/ (homophone of more), now /ˈmoʊ.ɚ/

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Childhood misconceptions

I also thought of some more childhood misconceptions since last time, mostly about words and phrases:

• "Money laundering" means counterfeiting.
• The word "suck" to mean "is bad" (as in "that sucks" or "you suck" or whatever) comes from "sucking your thumb", and originated as a way to describe someone as babyish (and therefore immature).
• "Manila" (in "manila envelope") is a mispronunciation of "vanilla" (referring to color, even though it's not the same color I'd normally associate with vanilla). (It didn't help that the first time I heard it, the person who said it was also pronouncing "envelope" in a way I thought was wrong.)
• "Brought to you by" just refers to anyone who helped in some way with a thing, not specifically money. I seem to remember making something that had at least one of myself, my mom (as in, like, stuff one would put in an "acknowledgements" section), and/or the program I used to make it (uncertainty because it's been so long I can't remember, also it's possible this happened multiple times).
• "Plus sizes" are sizes that are in between the regular sizes. That is, if a regular clothing store has sizes 9, 10, 11, etc., a store that advertises "plus sizes" would also have 9+ (between 9 and 10, i.e., 9½) and 10+ (between 10 and 11) (like how a grade of B+ is between an A and a B).
• I've seen people talking about how in history classes in the US, the War of 1812 is taught as its own thing, whereas in the UK it's treated as a minor part of the Napoleonic Wars. For me, it's even more extreme: I didn't know until many years after the War of 1812 was taught (and I think also after I played a part in the 1812 Overture at music camp) that the Napoleonic Wars were even around the same time, and don't remember Napoleon being mentioned in any history class before college. (That said, history was never a subject I was good at; it's possible I was supposed to learn this and failed, or maybe I did learn this and then forgot and relearned it later.)

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