It's All in How You Say It

This morning at my workplace's weekly group breakfast, one topic discussed was slang and colloquialisms, which led to some talk of regional terms. (I'd love to go into this in more depth at some point, but it's late, so that will have to be a post for another time.)

One coworker said that lately she had found herself saying "bubbler," a word she hadn't used in a long time. She exaggerated the pronunciation on purpose, so it came out "bubblah." Another person said, "Bubalah? That's what I used to call my grandmother."