I'm an Aussie who was always taught to pronounce the word "route" as for "root": to describe one's path by foot, at the least. But upon starting my career in IT I quickly came to understand that the convention here is to say "rowt" when describing the path of data. In my time I've heard the occasional non-technical staff member say "router" /ru:tɘ/ in a meeting and then look up with puzzlement at my sniggering colleagues, who seem to have been born to pronounce "router" /raʊtɘ/. I often wonder whether their offender was taught as I was - rightly or wrongly, too little perhaps, or just by the old-fashioned or those with an English bent. How would you pronounce "route" and "router"? To me it's silly to pronounce them differently depending on whether you're talking about how you might get to the train station or how your email might get there. Or is this just an example (perhaps personal) of we Aussies being torn between English and American - traditional and technological - influence?
I do assume here that the English say /ru:tɘ/. Is that not the case?
I obviously grew up hearing both, as I see no difference in rout(like out), or root(like boot) as pronunciations. As a computer scientists, it is always rout-er, never anything else.
I know that many Americans pronounce 'route' as 'rowt'; it's pronounced 'root' here in England. The computer thingy I've only heard pronounced 'rooter'.
The sniggering wouldn't have anything to do with the Aussie slang use of the word 'root', would it?
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Well, I couldn't find it. My Aussie Slang Dictionary bypassed the word.
I say "r-out" or "root," probably much like Sean. Interestingly, when I say them, there really isn't any rhyme nor reason to how I say them. Is there for you, Sean? I might say "r-out" 66 or "root" 66.
I have used (and heard) both pronunciations of route . . . but the computer thingy is always a "rowter" 'round here . . . but the famous highway is always "root" 66.
Someone want to enlighten me on the slang meaning of "root"? Must be naughty, or you'd have said already.
******* "Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. ~Dalai Lama
Like Cat, I always say "Root 66" to rhyme with boot. There are probably some contextual reasons behind which I pick, but obviously, it is difficult for me to experiment on myself.
I also pronounce root as either boot or put. In math, I'll say square root both ways, and I have not idea why, same with words like roof. I always say Hoof the latter, with a schwa.
Cat, our slang meaning is naughty indeed, but it's just on the euphemism side of explicitness. You probably wouldn't ask your gardener for one.
Just to clarify, I do say "rowter" in my profession, "rowt" for the path of data, and either "root" or "rowt" for the way back home, depending on the company. And if a stranger asked for a "root" someplace, I'd likely give them directions instead of a ravishing.
I read with particular interest that Arnie hears "rooter" and Seanahan sometimes says "square root" and "roof" with a schwa.
I pronounce route both ways. I probably picked up the "rowt" pronunciation as a kid in Kansas, and "root" in Washington. "Rowt," however, is the way it's pronounced in the Post Office, at least in this area.
I would guess the Aussie slang meaning of root is related to [http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=rut]rut[/URL]. Remember when Bob Ewell said he saw Tom Robinson "ruttin' on my Mayella" in To Kill A Mockingbird? Also, look at root rat and root ute in Macquarie Book of Slang.
TinmanThis message has been edited. Last edited by: tinman,
There's a new book available on the subject of swear words and sexual terms called, Expletive Deleted, ISBN 978-0-7432-7434-0, by Ruth Wajnryb, a language columnist with the Sydney Herald. Bracket, are you familiar with her? (No innuendo intended!)
Remember when Bob Ewell said he saw Tom Robinson "ruttin' on my Mayella"
Asa here: "Rut" may be related to "root," but is commonly used in regard to the estrus of animals.
Yes, but terms pertaining to animals are often extended to people, especially in condescending, slangy ways. Bob Ewell certainly wasn't talking about estrus. For those who aren't familiar with the 1960 book, To Kill A Mockingbird, Bob Ewell, a white man, accused Tom Robinson, a black man, of raping his daughter, Mayella. It's a great book.
The OED Online also says "root ...; dial. f. RUT." If I interpret that right, root is a dialectical form of rut.
Of course, anything with a cylindrical shape can be used as a phallic symbol. The OED Online lists root as a slang term for penis from 1846.
The OED Online has two entries about the Aussie slang meaning of root:
quote:
Austral. slang. (See quot. 1959.) The placing of this sense is uncertain; it may be, or be apprehended as, a fig. use of sense 10b below.
1945 BAKER Austral. Lang. viii. 152 The authentic digger form is Wouldn't it root you! A regimental paper ‘Wiry’ (1941) took its name from the first letters of the words in this phrase. 1951 D. STIVENS Jimmy Brockett 244 ‘It looks as though we're rooted, smacker,’ I told Herb. 1959 BAKER Drum II. 140 Root,..to outwit, baffle, exhaust, utterly confound (someone). Whence, to be rooted, to be exhausted or confounded; get rooted! Go to blazes! 1961 M. CALTHORPE Dyehouse (1962) xl. 186 ‘He can get rooted, for all I care,’ Collins said bitterly. 1973 Telegraph (Brisbane) 15 Nov. 3/1 Mr. Whitlam later admitted having said in an aside: ‘It is what he put in his guts that rooted him.’ 1974 J. POWERS Last of Knucklemen III. ii. 93 ‘What the hell's goin' on here?’ ‘The Hun's rooted--that's what!’ ‘Done like a dinner!’
Austral. coarse slang. trans. (usu. with a male subject). To copulate with; intr., to copulate, to engage in sexual intercourse. Also in phr. to root like a rattlesnake, to copulate vigorously.
1958 R. M. STUART in R. Chamberlain Stuart Affair (1973) ii. 12, I took her bathers off. Then I raped her. She was hard to root. 1966 P. WHITE Solid Mandala 185 We'll root together so good you'll shoot out the other side of Christmas. 1969Private Eye 1 Aug. 14 The Pope's a Jew if that jam tart doesn't root like a rattlesnake. 1974 K. COOK Bloodhouse 110 We found this bloody little poofter down on the beach fiddling with a bird... Couldn't even root her.
TinmanThis message has been edited. Last edited by: tinman,
