Back to US/UK differences again.

Most American writing causes me no problems -- the differences in spelling are trivial, and don't disrupt the flow at all. I assume it's the same for Americans when reading British writing?

However, dove always causes me to screech to a halt. We would ALWAYS say dived, and indeed a dove (which we rhyme with love, not hove) is to us a white bird, like a pigeon.

An American tells me that they feel the same about dived. To them it sounds like baby-talk (like saying "I gotted the toy"). Is this true?

And how do you pronounce buoy and router. (Rhetorical question, that one.)

Paul.

PS: Italics are fun, but can I [u]underline[/u] something?

Paul, I am sorry, but I say "dove" to rhyme with "hove". Is that incorrect?

I say "booy", and I am not sure if I have ever used "router". Is that employed in plumbing to clean out pipes? If so, I say "rooter".

As far as I know, you cannot underline here. However, you can bold by putting "b" between the brackets.

If you're a helicopter pilot and your rotor is not properly rooted, do you call [U]Rotor Rooter?[/U]

jk = just kidding

a router is a carpenter's power tool for carving wood. Pronounced "R-out-er"

Kalleh, you're so nice to be apologising about everything!

No, of course it's not wrong to rhyme "dove" with "hove" -- you're American. My point was that for us there is no such word. We only have a quite different word, spelt the same but pronounced differently (to rhyme with "love"), and it's a type of bird. Thus the confusion!

My interest was aroused because if we want to talk to each other about diving, the past tense of "to dive" will jar with both cultures -- we think "dove" is a bird, you think "dived" is baby-talk. There aren't many words like that.

Bouy and router were just me being silly. Buoy is a word that can confuse when spoken -- we pronounce it "boy". As it's fairly obscure, it's not a word that you and we necessarily know the other culture pronounces differently, so the strangeness can surprise us.

As for router, I probably struggle with it every day of my professional life. It's a computer thing (a bit like a modem), but how to pronounce it?

We follow a route into town, and prounonce it root. (We also use the woodworking tool a router and pronounce it rowter.

Now, a computer router is so called because it sends information down different routes. So we'd prounouce it rooter. But many Americans (who invented it, after all) call it a rowter. It's only a label, so when I teach people this stuff (that's what I do, I'm a computer trainer) I should call it by its most-common name, regardless of its theoretical derivation. (The same as we have computer programs here, but TV programmes; computer disks but other types of discs.) But what is that? Some Americans do say rooter. And wasn't the song about getting your kicks on root sixty-six?

So I'm baffled. In practice I tell my students both words and invite them to use either or both.

A good post, and illustrative of what I mean by "transpondian differences."

Neither/none is incorrect, and both/all are subject to confusion.

Or the other way around, if you want to be negative.

And don't let's get started on "nee-ther/nye-ther"! :-)

Anything that appears underlined on Wordcraft is a link. That is how it is differentiated. You can not use [underline][/underline] or [u][/u] on this site.

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And don't let's get started on "nee-ther/nye-ther"! :-)

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We can put an end to it here and now. Either is correct.

..... mmmmmm .... but, on second thought, perhaps neither is correct.

This deserves further study and discussion, but I think we all agree that there's wisdom in ==> And don't let's get started on "nee-ther/nye-ther"! :-)

PS ==> Thanks for the technical answer, Sarah!. We'll not try to underline anything.

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Kalleh, you're so nice to be apologising about everything!

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Paul, I think in real life (somehow this computer posting never seems "real") that I definitely would like you!

My husband confirms that the "router" I was thinking of is actually a "rooter" for ridding pipes of tree roots. (Thanks, Jerry! ) Having grown up in the country, we lived on a "rural route", and we called it "rowt", not "root". However, I have heard it both ways here.

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Originally posted by Sarah:
You can not use [underline][/underline] or [u][/u] on this site.

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Thanks Sarah.

And thanks Kalleh too. Reassuring that it's heard both ways in US usage, too.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
I definitely would like you!

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Aah! Thank you, and me you, I'm sure!

OK, here is the way I use and pronounce them...

1. I saw a dove in the yard. "d of"

2. I dove into the pool. "d oh v"

3. I would NEVER say dived.

4. We navigated around the buoy. "boy"

5. I live on rural route 2. "root"

6. The best route from here to there.... "r ow t"

7. I used a router to put an edge on the wood. "r ow ter"

A few comments on
1. I saw a dove in the yard. "d of"
2. I dove into the pool. "d oh v"
3. I would NEVER say dived.
4. We navigated around the buoy. "boy"
5. I live on rural route 2. "root"
6. The best route from here to there.... "r ow t"
7. I used a router to put an edge on the wood. "r ow ter"

My formative years were around New York City - the Bronx, Long-Island-just-over-the-border-from-Queens).

1,2,3 - agree completely

I recognize a difference between buoy and boy, more like "bwoy" but not enough to be BOO-ee.
A bit like the difference between where and wear, and probably equally as much honored by the breach as the observance, sloppy enunciation being so easy to slip into (sorry, I didn't mean "sloppy enunciation," of course, I meant "elision")

--Route 66 is Root, unequivocally. That's "oo" as in boo/boot/hoot/toot, not as in foot/soot
--route the way to get there from here is also Root, unequivocally
--the shaping tool is a router with ou as in "ouch!" [can't even try to spell it -ow without ambiguity, since there is row (roe) the boat and row (as in down) the disturbance !]
and let me add
--the computer gizmo that sends your packets here instead of there is also router-as-in-ouch.
--the rooter is a sports fan

Y'know, maybe George Bernard Shaw had the right idea afer all!

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--route the way to get there from here is also Root, unequivocally
--the shaping tool is a router with ou as in "ouch!" [can't even try to spell it -ow without ambiguity, since there is row (roe) the boat and row (as in down) the disturbance !]

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I agree with just about all you said there HatMan . But reguarding the above two, I still say route with an "ou"ch sound as do I say router with the same sound.

Now, for the record, I use a long I sound in neither and either rather than a long E sound.

And I do not say roof to rhyme with shoe!

All of the above should be taken as description, not as correction. Regional differences are notorious, if fascinating.

A GAMES Magazine crossword puzzle just had a definition "it has its ups and downs" and wanted for the answer "teeter-totter," which I had heard of only by the accident of having had a college roommate who hailed from Corvallis, Oregon. (In NYC it was "see-saw".) There are maps showing fairly sharp lines defining the different regions...

[This message was edited by haberdasher on Sun May 18th, 2003 at 11:42.]

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Originally posted by haberdasher:
My formative years were around New York City - the Bronx, Long-Island-just-over-the-border-from-Queens).

--Route 66 is Root, unequivocally. That's "oo" as in boo/boot/hoot/toot, not as in foot/soot
--route the way to get there from here is also Root, unequivocally
Y'know, maybe George Bernard Shaw had the right idea afer all!

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I grew up in the Chicago 'burbs.

Thought agreeing with you on "Route 66," I suspect that particular example is skewed because of the old song, "Get your kicks on Route 66," which used that pronunciation.

Apart from that particular road, I'm not certain (this is one of those circumstances where thinking about it may change the result), but I think I'd say "r ow t" in each case. Certainly, if traffic were redirected ("re-routed") I'd say it was "re- r ow ted".

"Get uour kicks on Route 66". Yes, I remember that song, and "route" definitely rhymed with "boot". For those of you who don't know, Route 66 was a U.S. highway from Chicago to Los Angeles prior to the construction of the interstate freeway system. "Get your kicks on Route 66" was the theme song for Route 66, a U.S. TV show which ran from 1960 to 1964.

A few years ago there was a special on public television (Channel 9 in Seattle) about the famed highway. A television crew travelled the highway, interviewing people along the way. They asked people to sing "Get uour kicks on Route 66". Most of them in the West sang it, pronouncing "Route" with the "oo" sound of "boot", the pronunciation that's in the recorded version in the show. In the Midwest, many people sang it with the "ou" sound (as in "rout", "bout", "lout").

I was born in Kansas, where it's pronounced with the "ou" sound. When I was 7, I moved to Washington (state), where they generally pronounce it with the "oo" sound. When I went to work for the Post Office, they pronounced "carrier route" with the "ou" sound. I've been confused about it my whole life.

Tinman

Highway 66 was Main Street in my old home town, Galena, Kansas.

We lived beside a highway
Where the nation's traffic roared.
We lived through the Great Depression,
Where The Grapes of Wrath was stored.

Until the song was published the road was always referred to as Highway (not Route) Sixty-Six, so there was no controversy about pronunciation.

Why isn't it RUHTabaga, instead of ROOTabaga? (rutabaga)

Why isn't it RUHTabaga, instead of ROOTabaga? (rutabaga)

'Cause that ain't how the word's pronounced. You might as well ask why women isn't pronounced oolong.

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Originally posted by zmježd:
You might as well ask why women isn't pronounced oolong.

For one thing, if you pour hot water over women and drink the drippings, it doesn't taste nearly as good, and the noise is terrible!

Z, I've begun reading this: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04....html?pagewanted=all
Damn, he's making it awfully hard to maintain my position as a peevologist!

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Z, I've begun reading this: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04....html?pagewanted=all
Damn, he's making it awfully hard to maintain my position as a peevologist!

STOP READING!

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'Cause that ain't how the word's pronounced. You might as well ask why women isn't pronounced oolong.

That's amazing! I was just about to ask why we pronounce woman as oolong.

Geoff, that book looks great! I want to read it. I tried to post your link on our Intranet at work (a hint to our editors!), but I see our discussion board has precisely three forums: 1) Things to do in Chicago; 2) How do you like the Intranet; and 3) Help with software. Talk about a boring discussion board!