Version history

  1. #2017-11-22: first version of idiolect
  2. #2018-12-02: first version of derealization
  3. #2019-07-02: first version of misconceptions
  4. #2025-11-13: added misconceptions about sitcoms/soap operas and 401(k); also some minor formatting changes and addressed dead links on some of the pages in this section
  5. #2025-12-28:
    • idolect:
      • other things: added notes about /mət/ vs. /mənt/ and rhymes involving non-rhotic accents; mentioned that I think I sometimes use /ps/ at starts of words
      • specific words: added comfortable, onomatopoeia, route, #include, 101; reworded caramel, furnature, have to, and the note at the bottom about /ʌ/
      • used to pronounce: new section; moved clothes, crayon, milk, mirror there; birthday, camouflage, measure/treasure, (lawn) mower are new
    • misconceptions: added misconceptions about the War of 1812, "money laundering", "suck", "manila", "brought to you by", and "plus sizes"; reworded the one about "unemployment rate" again
  6. #2026-02-14:
    • first version of holidays
    • fixed the last updated date on idiolect (which since I was changing it meant I had to change it to today, since changing the date is a change)
  7. #2026-03-12: first published version of sight; also changed the breadcrumbs of a bunch of pages to include the home page for this section (even though that page isn't yet linked to from the main home page)
  8. #2026-03-24:
    • idiolect: went through the whole document looking for things I might be able to explain better or no longer are sure are completely true
      • added an introduction, which includes some caveats
      • edited the common features section, including changing the pita/Peter example to cheetah/cheater (since apparently pita has an alternative pronunciation that I didn't know about when I first wrote that), mentioning that I might use /ʍ/ in some foreign names, hopefully made it a bit clearer which vowel caught/cot are merged to, and mentioned that I have the hurry-furry merger (moved from the syllabic /l/ section) and that I don't have the pin-pen merger
      • rewrote the section on ⟨th⟩; I'm less certain than I was about how I actually pronounce that sound
      • some slight changes to the section on vowels before /ɡ/ and /ŋ/, including that I'm not sure if the exception for income and penguin actually applies when I'm speaking
      • mentioned that I might be inconsistent about -olk words
      • a couple extra notes in the section on breaking
      • reworded the section on syllabic /l/, and added a note about allophony
      • added audio (previously posted on the xkcd forums) about the CURE split
      • added a section about schwa, and moved a couple things from other sections there
      • mentioned "there was a time in my life when I intentionally pronounced certain silent letters, and that might have kind of stuck" in the note about ⟨ps⟩ (also added the actual pronunciations of psi and xi)
      • moved where I talked about "and" in numbers, and mentioned why they told us to do it that way
      • new words in the "specific words" section: Aesop, aesthetic, either/neither, err, Sciuridae, SQL, SQLite, with, wolf, women, wool, a section for suffixes, ketchup, and a section for spelling pronunciations
      • mentioned that I'm not sure if I've said the word aural out loud
      • removed coordinate, because I pronounced it in my head in a different way than what was listed; I think my pronunciation is inconsistent enough to be all of the possible pronunciations in free variation
      • added colons to the "specific words" section
      • clarified "not very consistent" in the section on writing
      • changed /ol/ to /oʊl/, and /iʊ/ and /ɪʊ/ to /ɪu/, because I was inconsistent about those in a way that wasn't meant to convey actual differences, and made sure all the IPA had syllable separators and stress markers
      • fixed some spelling mistakes
      • some formatting changes
      • there are a lot of changes and I might have missed something here
    • sight: put a bit more detail into the part about sunglasses, added a section on facial recognition, and fixed some spelling mistakes
  9. #2026-04-06: fixed a few typos, including changing "childhood idiolect" to "idiolect" in the title of the previous update page (that was a copy/paste error from a previous page that included childhood misconceptions)