When I was a kid there was a book about a vain horse named Nitter Pitter, and this horse is the exact image of Nitter Pitter that lives in my head. So RIP NitPit I guess.

Yup, usually with brandy, rum, or cognac. You can buy it without alcohol but (at least in my experience) only kids really drink it that way.

Ha, called it! It’s a great song. Music video is kinda neat too.

It’s on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer soundtrack “Radio Sunnydale”, and the song before it is Blue by Angie Hart. So these two songs are linked in my head, and every time I listen to one, I immediately have to listen to the other. How’s that for a Pavlovian response? ;)

RIP Jimmy 🖤

Probably not. Bearing = birthing, rearing = raising.

What the fuck.

About 80 mins from my parents, an hour from my in-laws, and 45 mins from my brother-in-law and his wife & kids. All of my other family are farther away and irrelevant anyway.

If my parents and in-laws were younger, my husband and I probably would’ve left the country by now, but our parents are aging and they need us within driving distance.

Awww I love little Bitty!

Funny…I think of Aimee Mann!

https://youtu.be/Dr08SIHELV8

At this point I stick to the lager drink, matched one-for-one with the water drink. Hashtag aging…

I’m from NJ and they sound the exact same here.

Interesting… I’m from NJ and there’s no audible difference between ladder and latter here, nor between madder and matter. However, my parents are both from different parts of NJ than where I was raised, and they do pronounce them differently!

I’m from NJ and there’s no audible difference between ladder and latter here. Both have a D sound.

Mission = agenda… have we just uncovered the tRaNs aGeNdA we keep hearing about‽ 😱

They misunderestimated me.

I quit my PhD program in Physics because the misery wasn’t going to be worth the eventual paycheck, especially because I refused to work for contractors in the military-industrial complex. I ended up working for a while and got an MS in Applied Statistics, which is meh. Physics actually interested me. Statistics bored the shit out of me but it was useful for the field I ended up in. But now I’m retired, which is pretty satisfying!

True! But I guess young adult readers don’t tend to be as discerning, which is why I never expect the writing to be any good.

I pronounce spigot as “spicket” but that’s normal where I’m from.

My mom had a couple of weird ones that took me a while to unlearn:

Stipend = “stipp-ind”
Antibiotics = “antee-BEE-otics”

Yeah I’m from NJ and same, but more like wooder.

Also orange = oar-inge
Florida = floor-duh

And of course glottal stops everywhere:

kitten = kih’-in
Trenton = chre’-in