Zahra's Idiolect

I remember learning the word "idiolect" in college. It was in my English 420 class at San Francisco State. Introduction to the Study of Language with Rachelle Waksler in the HSS Building. One of the reasons I remember learning the word was because I had a friend at the time who had quite her own interesting idiolect and it took some learning and translating to be able to fully understand what she was talking about or referring to in her speech.

During one of the lectures Professor Waksler discussed the word. The textbook from that class (An Introduction to Language by Victoria Fromkin and Robert Rodman, 6th edition) defines the word on page 399: "All speakers of English can talk to each other and pretty much understand each other; yet no two speak exactly alike. Some differences are due to age, sex, state of health, size, personality, emotional state, and personal idiosyncrasies. That each person speaks somewhat differently from all others is shown by our ability to recognize acquaintances by hearing them talk. The unique characteristics of the language of an individual speaker are referred to as the speaker's idiolect." I begin this post with the definition before delving into Zahra's personal idiolect. I've compiled a short list of things she says and think that I will continue to add to this post as more things come to mind. The incomplete "dictionary" here consists of mispronunciations, terms she's coined herself, and various little idiosyncrasies we find especially cute. I'll first list the term and then the "translation."

"hostiple" - hospital

"popiskull" - popsicle

"kitaar" - guitar

"backyardigan" - backyard

"yummioso" - a combinatino of "yummy" and the Spanish word ending "-oso" (as in delicioso)

"carpet" - a grocery store cart

"naked bread" - bread with the crust removed

"naked pizza" - pizza without cheese or any toppings (namely bread and sauce)

"sighted" - excited

"kitchen" - refridgerator

"taxi" - stroller

"pajammies" - a combination of "pajamas" and "jammies"

"splode" - explode

"channel" - commercial on TV

As I said, there are more terms for the list, but this is all I could think of at the moment. I look forward to the days when Max has his own little unique vocabulary like Zahra.