>> really didn't know that (part in blue). << It means words that in order to have a grammatically well formed sentence must be omitted.

Yup, it's true. They are often mispelled. Although many people do actually distinguish them in speech, the difference seems to be too subtle for most people, so they actually have to learn the definition of "then" and "than" in order to spell

>> I'm originally from Michigan, near Wisconsin, and I've never noticed that phenomenon in that area. << Only some people have it in certain areas. It's far from being universal.

Well, for one thing, the process that changes "nuclear" to /nuk@lr=/ is that same one that changed "brid" to "bird", so with that logic, it is a mispronunciation say "bird", because the "correct" pronunciation is "brid". Remeber, phonetics

Well, it depends on which language the people natively speak. Speakers of language with the same aspiration rules as English don't have to learn that. It's true that an unaspirated "t" can sound like a "d" in English occasionally, but I think that

Some people will even get a sort of neutral accent that has all of the unusual parts removed. The Western US accent was actually formed like that, because speakers from the North, Midlands, and South, all moved to the West, and their accents

Now on to the Texan that moved to Chicago. Like I said, Texas is a big state, with a huge accent continuum. The Westernern most part of Texas has a Western or Western-transitional accent, and thus sounds pretty well identical to a New Mexican

Well, it depends on a number of factors. If you know phonetics, you can modify or consciously prevent yourself from modifying your accent. It also depends on how much you like the place that you move to. So, for example, if the 30 year old moved

>> Many Canadians pronounce the word "marry" as "merry." In GAE, “marry” is pronounced with the vowel “ae.” > The diphthong "au," as in "loud," is commonly raised before the consonants "t," "th," "ch," and "s." This diphthong is not

I don't see the ambiguity. If I read that sentence, I would assume that it bloomed that summer. It doesn't really talk about what happened after that.