I have a real life example of ideolect, one which I am using in my new novel (hopefully the guy who used this word is LONG dead!)

Elmer was a contract employee of the post office that served the little town I grew up in, delivering mail on a rural route. He punctuated just about every sentence with the word "bolly". I first heard this when I was about 10, and had NO idea what he meant. Eventually I asked someone in the town, who told me that what he was saying was originally "by golly". And all this time I had thought he was calling his interlocutor by the name bolly. Stuck with me ALL these years.


TEd