Yes, my own thinking about this as written above is the funny story. It's true, and it's been truly frustrating to me for decades, before I finally learned he was saying real. And purposely mispronouncing it. Before learning this I thought there was "ill" in it somewhere -- along the lines of the person who submitted "are yer ill". But it couldn't be that I had thought. There's definitely an "ill" in there. WTF could he be saying?!