Rowter or Rooter? (Merged)

Edinburghlass_2

aliasojo wrote:

r..out..er (or rowter) here too.

Funnily enough Glad said to me just this week, "is that a Scottish way of saying it"

gizmoleeds

It's a rowter.

Just because Route is pronounced root, doesn't mean router has to be pronounced rooter. Computer terms are often different to normal English. Just like the plural of computer mouse is mouses, and a kilo is 1,024 of something not 1,000.

According to the Cambridge University Press we shouldn't be pronouncing it at all - there is no such word :rotfl:

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/results.asp?searchword=router&image.x=0&image.y=0

seanparkin

Definately rooter.

as explained, it is from the french 'on route' as a router sends its little packets 'on route' to their destinations.

r-out-er is a typical americanism. No offence to Americans, but its not your language, don't distort it.

fbrj

Rockee wrote:

It is 'rooter' as it comes from the French - en route

Absolutely correct - this has to be the clincher.....ask any self-respecting Frenchman!!

seanparkin

gizmoleeds, computer plural of mouse is mice. not mouses lol - this is just from lazy sys engs who dont have any knowledge in english im afraid.

and numbering is completely different. A kilo is 1024 because of the base 8 system of counting that computers have whereas us humans have a base 10 system. It has nothing to do with english.

fbrj

From another site - seems to sum it up!

"A worse example is the common mispronunciation of the word "router" as
"raowter." The word comes from the French phase "en route,"
pronounced "on root." Until the mid-1980s, the standard American and
English pronunciation of this word was "root," as evidenced by the
pronunciation of the popular US television show "Route 66." When
Local Area Networks became common technology, introduced by companies
populated with engineers from the American South and West, the origin
of the word and its correct pronunciation were displaced by the
Southwestern regional pronunciation, which has now infested even
television shows such as Star Trek Voyager ("Re-raowt power to the
shields!"). To adopt this pronunciation is to deliberately bury the
history of the phrase. (Clearly the show's producers do not realize
how bizarre this pronunciation sounds outside the American Southwest.)

It is understandable that many individuals with a strong engineering
and computer background are weak in English, just as many with a
background in languages are weak in mathematics. One can sympathize
with their plight since standard English pronunciation is infrequently
or poorly taught these days. But it is impossible to sympathize with
the authors of many key documents in our industry such as the
foundation documents of the Internet, the Requests for Comments
(RFCs). From the beginning, these documents are full of spelling and
grammatical errors, yet each came from academic or commercial
organizations large and sufficiently prosperous to afford editing and
proofreading services. Had they understood the errors of their
linguistic ways, these scientists would surely have behaved
differently...."

gizmoleeds

fbrj wrote:

Absolutely correct - this has to be the clincher.....ask any self-respecting Frenchman!!

How is this the clincher - we are not French!!!

Just because a word originates from French doesn't mean we have to pronounce a subsequently developed word like they would.

Should we call the toilet a toilette? Should we célébrer instead of celebrate? An area an aire, a button a bouton? Do you drink liqueur instead of liquor?

davels

Great post fbrj - being a computer engineer myself I find that deeply amusing... the company I work for has a huge office in Houston, Texas... and other's in Norway... so it's funny to hear how they say it - and that explanation details it perfectly :-) Most amusing.

gizmoleeds

fbrj wrote:

From another site - seems to sum it up!

"A worse example is the common mispronunciation of the word "router" as
"raowter." The word comes from the French phase "en route,"
pronounced "on root." Until the mid-1980s, the standard American and
English pronunciation of this word was "root," as evidenced by the
pronunciation of the popular US television show "Route 66." When
Local Area Networks became common technology, introduced by companies
populated with engineers from the American South and West, the origin
of the word and its correct pronunciation were displaced by the
Southwestern regional pronunciation, which has now infested even
television shows such as Star Trek Voyager ("Re-raowt power to the
shields!"). To adopt this pronunciation is to deliberately bury the
history of the phrase. (Clearly the show's producers do not realize
how bizarre this pronunciation sounds outside the American Southwest.)

Have you ever read Shakespeare? Do you not understand that languages evolve over time? The term router is a new use of the word route, and has developed for iteslf (perhaps by influence of a regional dialect), a different pronounciation to the word route.

This does not denigrate the English language, but is merely a feature of it's evolution.

Does anyone know why we call an egg an egg?

Six hundred years ago the most commonly understood English word for Egg was "eiren" (or something like that) but when printing was developed one of the first printers of recipe books decided he didn't like the word eiren so called them eggs (a north-eastern dialect word) instead.

seanparkin

hehe fbjr, how true that is.

Incorrect Gizmoleeds, in your examples they have been translated into other languages and the words altered.

This word is pronounced with perfect english dialect as 'oo' - It is well known that the 'ou' pairing followed by a consenant-e pairing (note the e changes the structure of the word, as opposed to 'south' that does not have the e being an 'ow' word) is pronounced 'oo'.

Research your english grammar, believe me it is the correct pronunciation both from the words origins, and our own grammar.

It has nothing to do with evolution of the language (which is often caused by mass mispronunciation anyway), it is just plain mispronunciation.