talking oddly

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I've noticed that I do a couple of really weird things when I talk:

first of all, if this is someone I've met before and one of "my subjects", I've been compulsively prefacing my discussions with "I don't know if I've said this before or not", because I'm afraid I've already rambled on about things. I tend to use one word or phrase over and over again for varying lengths of time. like, I was on a date two days ago and kept saying "I could see that" to almost everything, and my use of "indeed" is has been so consistent and frequent for years that people joke with me about it.

I've started swearing a lot and imitating a southern accent (which I don't have - though I live in the south - I'm from Pennsylvania) because people think the way I grew up talking is like, putting on airs or something. I've very, very deliberately "dumbed down" my word choice and enunciation. this is also in part to sound more masculine, since I used to get a lot of grief for that.

I also get surprised at random moments, usually when stressed, and start...I guess you'd call it lisping. the other day I was trying to order lunch and I relapsed into difficulty with certain phonemes. it's not quite like a toddler but it's damn close sometimes. like I'll be having a high order academic conversation and then turn around and order "bwead" instead of "bread", ask for "piggles" instead of "pickles", and specify I want "chedd-aw" cheese (like with an open mid-back rounded vowel) or something. it happens only occasionally but it's really embarrassing.

anybody else do things like this? I'm especially curious about the weird pronunciation problems.

All the stuff about being worried about rambling and using the same phrase over and over again. Then I try to avoid saying that phrase and start saying another one over and over again. All of that stuff, I can relate to.

I do this, too. I used to overuse "indeed," as well, though lately I've been using "fantastic," as my all purposes word. Fantastic is basically my response to anything, because even if the subject in question is not fantastic, it works as sarcasm. Since I say it flatly and with no facial expression it's very much open to interpretation what I mean by it.
From a young age I would speak very pedantically. However, as you said, people tend to think I'm being pretentious, even after I tell them that's just the way I speak. Because of this I have also had to dumb down my speech significantly. On occasion I will forget to and someone will point out that "nobody understands you."
As for the pronunciation issue, I have something similar. My problem is with the pronunciation of vowels, though. It only happens when I'm focused on something else. Stress is irrelevant. Whereas you might say "cheddaw" cheese, my faulty pronunciation would be cheddar "chayse". Bread would become "braid". That sort of thing. Is that a common problem?

I always worry about the way I sound. I've never had any speech delays, and nobody's ever said anything about my speech (I can rely on my family and close friends to give me honest feedback), but when I talk to my friends in public I always feel people turn around to look at me funny as though they have a problem with the sound of my voice. I don't talk too loud, but when I'm a bit nervous of somebody (a person who is a bit bossy or overpowering), I can sometimes drift off into an unusual monotone (but I heard that's normal for a shy person with a bossy person).

Also I get fed up with the way I talk. I always use the same thing over and over. I know probably everybody does, but I always think people notice it with me more, probably because I rant about things the most out of my whole family. I can't really think of words I always use off hand. But I always think people like my mum's grinning to herself thinking, ''she's using those same boring words again''.

yeah I dunno, I never had speech delays (actually I'm told people thought I was a bit of a prodigy, I was just belting out complex sentences at age 2, with no "baby talk" stage at all) but I've only gotten to where I speak at the appropriate volume very recently. prior to that I was always too quiet.

Repeating a word over and over whilst driving today.

Professional presenters on TV often use the same phrases and words over and over.
To a certain extent I think everybody does.

I used to repeat myself endlessly but (think) I have it under control now.

My voice sounds a little nasal-y when I hear a recording of myself, so there's that. Like some others in this thread, I tend to get into "ruts" where I tend to use one word--or a handful of words--over and over to describe things. Currently my word of choice is "fancy," which, come to think of it, is a fancy word and rather fun to say. Fancy fancy fancy... Also, I'll often speak in silly voices or accents, mostly out of boredom/amusement. I talk to myself a fair amount. When I was younger, I'd sometimes repeat the last word of something I said under my breath a few times (times...times...).

More generally, I sometimes find I have a hard time putting my thoughts into words, so when I try to describe or recall something, my speech will be littered with "um" and "how should I put this...", among other things. Other times, I speak in a needlessly formal manner or use unusual words to describe something. And I sometimes tend to speak either too loudly or too softly without realizing it.

I tend to have poor volume control, repeat words at random, overuse certain phrases if I don't know how to construct a conversation and stutter at random moments. If I'm under stress, like ordering in a restaurant, I tend to mispronounce words or start pronouncing my 's' s as 'sh'. Like "Pleashe" and "shtart" instead of "please" and "start". My accent mixes...sometimes I sound Canadian.

I have practically all of the OP's symtoms apart from the baby-talk, thankfully.

The only time I talk like a baby is when I'm talking to my dog.

I especially relate to the "I'm not sure if I've ever told you this before" or words to that effect.

I do that often of late.

Have you ever thought about what part of the brain you use for language? I have a lot of the same stuff, especially over-using phrases, sounding feminine and dumbing myself down. I also spoke in full sentences from the start, but I was a bit later and garbled.

I talked to my brother-in-law (mild AS) a few weeks ago, and in addition we both have to read a whole sentence or paragraph to understand what it means. I haven't asked him (yet), but for me it's as though I use my right-hemisphere spatial and tactile sense for speech. It seems that symbols lack meaning individually, and that I need to have enough of them in a specific order to recognize something concrete before I can understand what's being said. I also have to assemble what I'm saying out of idioms and things that I've memorized.

That would explain pedantic grammar and punctuation - trying to not miss anything when I splice things together, and overshooting.

Maybe someone else has noticed that...