On Dialect

Where I come from, when you pronounce "rout" it sounds like "root."

Which is weird because most of the people who grew up around me actually pronounce it "rout," so I'm guessing it's more like where my family came from back when we were more openly trashy.

It just bothers me. I don't like "rout." It sounds wrong. There's something crass about it. I think it's some weird linguistic affectation I picked up on at  young age. Acoustically, aurally, there is just something hard and Germanic about "rout."

That's a shame, really. "Rowt" makes a hell of a lot more sense for route's spelling, and it'd separate "root" from it's weird neighbor. But then "rout," itself an underused word, would be pretty boned. Route is like the C of the word world. Are you a K or an S, C? Get it together!

But there is one thing I know for sure, and that is this:

Nat King Cole didn't sing shit about Rout 66.