You might be able to correctly guess that the reason for my mistake was that I had heard the phrase “ramen noodles” so often and so invariably that I randomly ended up rebracketing the final N in “ramen” as the first N in “noodles”. And then because I myself only referred to “rama noodles”, nobody ever corrected me, because to them my output sounded exactly like their input.
And I did not have much written input to go off of, either: not on instant noodle packages, which generally just said “noodles”; nor on ramen shop signs, the few of which I would’ve seen apparently found it “fancier” to not put the word “ramen” in their names; nor did ramen really come up in writing elsewhere, because I wasn’t exactly going around spending my days reading about the history of pulled noodles.
So there were a few ways in which my bubble could’ve burst:
- I could’ve just read the word “ramen” somewhere. While the instant noodle packages and ramen shops in Norway tended not to readily use the word “ramen”, those in occupied Mni Sota Makoce did. And so I had elevated chances of encountering the word “ramen” in writing for the fraction of any given year that I spent in Mni Sota Makoce. But time and time again, I didn’t notice ramen shop signage in Mni Sota Makoce; and time and time again it did not occur to me to actually inspect the packs of Maruchan atop me nan’s fridge.
- I could’ve looked up “rama noodles” online, only to find that all the results were for “ramen noodles”. But it would seem that I just never did this, because I didn’t really have any sort of burning curiosity about noodles as a kid that would’ve inspired me to google about the ol’ yummy curls.
- I could’ve heard someone use the word “ramen” not paired with the word “noodles”, nor paired with any other word that would allow rebracketing; or I myself could’ve said “rama” not paired with such a word, and in so doing exposed my error to others.
This is of course assuming that even if I had been exposed to someone saying or writing “ramen”, that I would not have come up with any number of alternate explanations that would’ve allowed me to continue to believe that the word was “rama” just as I’d always believed; and this is also assuming that even if I had very clearly said “rama” in a way that others could not explain away as a mishearing, that other people would’ve actually bothered to correct me instead of just letting it slide, or even if they had corrected me, that I would’ve actually noticed the correction and had it stick.
…But truth be told I honestly don’t think I ever actually did any sort of explaining away, and I don’t think I ever actually was consciously corrected for saying “rama” instead of “ramen”. I really do think that it was as simple as my conversations involving ramen just tending to be very short and sporadic, with my interlocutor exclusively saying “ramen noodles” and myself exclusively saying “rama noodles”.
So yeah, the only likely ways in which I could’ve learned that it was “ramen” instead of “rama”, was by either reading the word in Mni Sota Makoce, or by hearing someone say “ramen” not paired with “noodles”. And indeed, the only specific memory I have relating to my unlearning of “rama” in favor of “ramen” was ~7:34 in the JonTron video “Are You Afraid of the Dark? Part 2”, in which the racist antivaxxer says,
Bad guy wears boots, all black, and his hair looks like… ramen. Mmm!
…Though I am not entirely certain it actually was this exact clip that burst my bubble, or whether I just saw that JonTron clip at a time when I had recently from somewhere else learned that I’d been saying “ramen” wrong — and so that clip actually just reinforced my unlearning of “rama” by making me recall and cringe about my earlier mistake. I mean, I can certainly imagine that all these years later that I could’ve forgotten my actual first experience of unlearning “rama”, and so my brain has just substituted that experience for my memory of that JonTron clip.
Which isn’t to say that it’s impossible that JonTron was the one who taught me to say “ramen” instead of “rama” — just that it’s impossible to be certain he did.
Anyways, point is, that’s why English speakers call oxen “steer” and Norwegian speakers call them “tyr”.
Yeah I like ramen
Rammin those noodles down my gullet