Kids learn to speak before they have all the rules in place. Commonly, children understand the article “a” but don’t have the refinement for “an.” It comes out in some pretty memorable variation in the words. Sometimes those words stick for the family.
For my older son, it was earthworm. I told him that thing is an earthworm. For about a year after that, he called them Nearthworms. For his son, my grandson, it’s uncle. I told him he had an uncle named John. He was Uncle John, but to the baby he has always been Nuncle John.
When we were kids, we mispronounced dominos as “donnamos.” My great niece called her fancy play shoes heel highs. My younger son wished me sweet beans at bedtime for years. Such things are endearing, and get incorporated into the peculiar family vocabulary. We still tell one another sweet beans.
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