the thing about griddle as a nickname is that phonetically speaking it makes no sense as “baby talk.” in my dialect the “r” and “l” sounds are difficult for babies and are learned later than other sounds, so it makes no sense for baby harrow to have added them when they didn’t already exist in “Gideon.” tamsyn should theoretically know this seeing as in htn, palamedes comments on how the baby in the romance novel speaks with a “phonetically impossible lisp” leading me to believe that she has an idea of what phonetics is and of what lisps ARE phonetically possible. and therefore, the whole idea of “griddle” being harrow’s babytalk version of gideon only makes sense if griddle is pronounced in a wildly different way in NZ English than it is in my dialect. New Zealanders please let me know if this is the case because currently I’m drawing the conclusion that Harrow nicknamed gideon griddle on purpose and I can’t imagine what her exact reason for that would be besides to terrorize gideon
How Gideon the Ninth author Tamsyn Muir queers the space opera
Thanks to @z-gone-mad I found this interview with tamsyn where she talks about griddle!!! Here’s what she said:
so conclusion: griddle is not babytalk for gideon, it was an extremely deliberate nickname on harrow’s part. this confirms what we all know, which is that harrow goes to dramatic lengths just to be a bitch. thank you for coming to my ted talk