Using both と and を with the verb 言う？

Question

I've recently been reading Tobira and there was a sentence that I was really having trouble finding exactly what was going on in it.

そして、「どこに住んでるの？」と「い」を言わなかったり、「どこ、住んでるの？」と「に」を落として言ったりすると、もっとくだけた感じになります。

I think I figured out the meaning which I would interpret as

"Not saying the 「い」 in 「どこに住んでるの？」 and saying 「どこ、住んでるの？」 while dropping the 「に」 gives a more relaxed impression."

But my issue is specifically with そして、「どこに住んでるの？」と「い」を言わなかったり,

Normally, from my interpretation when a phrase marked with と followed by the verb 言う in this manner it would be quoting what was said/will be said. However, what's being said in this case seems to be marked with the を? Intuitively, I initially thought 「どこに住んでるの？」と「い」を言わなかったり carried the meaning of "Not saying 「どこに住んでるの？」 and 「い」".

My logic behind this being that the 言わなかったり is of course in the negative form. If someone could breakdown the grammar for this example (especially regarding using both particles in a single sentence with 言う) I would be super appreciative!

I've seen the particle を with 言う a lot recently but haven't considered the differences between と and を with 言う until now. What exactly is the difference between using を or と with 言う and what are some cases one would be chosen over the other?

Thanks!

Note: The question this was claimed to be a duplicate of does not have an answer that addresses the concurrent use of both particles within a single sentence.

Answer 1

◯◯を △△と 言う stands for "to call ◯◯ △△" or "to express ◯◯ as △△ by utterance".

In the case of ｢どこに住んでるの？｣と「い」を言わなかったり, you can regard it as "she saved saying い like どこに住んでるの".

Answer 2

Here is my attempt on this question (made possible thanks to user4092's answer and comments):

〇〇と〜 can pretty much attach onto any predicate it wants to, and (literally speaking) means "do ~ with the sound of 〇〇". (Or even more relaxed maybe, like "do ~ with a resemblance to 〇〇.")

It can even attach all the way outside of the negation (like in your sentence) assuming that there isn't something which needs to attach below the negation like an object to its left.

When you say 彼の名を太郎と言う, the syntax is like

彼の名を太郎と言う
<[kare=NO na]=WO [tarou=TO iw]>-u
"I say his name like 'tarou'."

so if you negate it you get

彼の名を太郎と言わない
<[kare=NO na]=WO [tarou=TO iw]>-anai
"I don't say his name like 'tarou'."

But when you say a sentence like yours,

｢どこに住んでるの？｣と「い」を言わない
doko ni sunderu no=TO [[i=WO iw]-anai]
"[not say 'i'] like 'doko ni sunderu no'"

(I speculate that this is in fact the same と as the one you generally find with onomatopoeia such as ゆっくりと.)