L'error

In our discussion of part III of Elle Cordova's Grammarian Saga, "Grammarian vs Errorist showdown at the secret L'error", there was some back-and-forth about whether or not error could stand it for the nucleus of lair.

AntC wrote "I can't smudge 'error; into a single syllable", and I responded that "Elle Cordova does it by brute force — I don't think 'air' is her normal pronunciation of 'error'".

But looking into pronunciations of error on the internet, I've found that her "l'error" ~ "lair" pun is, in fact, pretty plausible.

In a 2012 story on Morning Edition, "Court Rules Against Part of Marriage Act", Dale Showengerdt says

And I think that was a significant legal error, and- and one that we anticipate the Supreme Court will remedy.

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Because the final /l/ of legal bleeds into the start of error, excising error's audio actually yields something that can pass for lair:

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In the 10 random examples that I checked, error sounded effectively monosyllabic (i.e. similar to air) about half the time, which is consistent with comments by Roger C and Bob Ladd.