Where I’m from (which is where I live now), “root” and “route” are homonyms. Thus, naturally, I pronounce “router” “rooter”. However, I just spent all morning on the phone with the IT people for the company who didn’t recognize the word when I said it, and then would finally “correct” me with “a rOW-ter?” I assume they were migrants - this area is full of them - from an area of the country where “route” is pronounced “rOWt”. I explained the situation to a coworker, who claimed that despite regional pronunciations of “route”, “router” is only pronounced one way, because it’s part of technical jargon. That explanation makes no since to me - “router” is based on the word “route”, so one’s pronunciation of one would match the other.
So, for those of you from areas of the country who use the same pronuncaition for “root” and “route”, how do you pronounce “router”?
I pronounce the tool router as roWter (and the electrical component that way as well ), the highway as root . Seems pretty much the norm for people around these parts.
Seconding FatBaldGuy: only ROWTer, but root and rowt about equally. Route as a verb I have never heard with an “oo,” but that doesn’t mean it’s not done, I suppose.
Root and route are the same here (usually–as a verb, it can go either way), but router is always ROW-ter. I’ve never heard anyone call it anything else.
route = root in pronunciation around here, but “router” rhymes with “outer.”
But “route = rout” is a standard secondary pronunciation. Most likely, in the area where routers were first invented that was the common pronunciation. People took it up from there, since the salespeople/technical people rhymed it with “outer.”
pizzabrat, I’ll give you a little back-up. I just took my first baby steps into home networking and had to use all of my, limited, mental powers to keep from saying router like Roto-Rooter.
For me, router is ROW-ter.
If I say ‘route’ meaning direction (Which route did he take?), I say it as “rowt” If I say it as part of a road name (Take the next exit off Rte. 2), it’s “root”
On the U.K. sitcom “The IT Crowd,” one of the characters pronounced the name of the networking device as “rooter,” the only time I’ve ever heard that pronounciation.
I don’t know if that’s simply a case of lazy TV writing, or if folks on the other side of the pond really do call it that, but there you go.
I’m a British IT guy, and it is indeed pronounced “rooter” here. However, there are quite a few Australians working in the British IT industry, and for some reason they always find “rooter” hilarious .
In my experience, root and rOWt can both be nouns (e.g. the rOWt to the store, driving on root 19, etc.) whereas only rOWt can be a verb. (rOWt this over here.) Thus a machine which rOWts must be a rOWter.
HA! My coworker punctuated her position by claiming it’s pronounced “rowter” worldwide. Wait till I tell her that another English-speaking country - THE English-speaking country, actually - pronounces it my way.
I work in IT and I would just die laughing is someone called a network device a rooter. Regadless of how mix the other meanings of the work, that little elcectronic box should only be called a router in the U.S. I am pretty sure the same applies to the woodworking tool as well.
For me, the term relating to travel and roads is pronounced ‘root’.
However, we in Southern Ontario very seldom use the word ‘Route’ as part of a road name (we tend to use ‘highway’ in everyday use, as in “Highway 3”). We also use the ‘root’ pronunciation when saying things like, “What is the correct route to Omemee?”
I pronounce the name of the networking equipment ‘rooter’, as well, as it has to do with controlling the route that data takes as it travels through the network.
However…
I use the pronunciation that rhymes with ‘outer’ when speaking of the power tool that uses a rotating bit to cut grooves in things. Nothing to do with routes or directions of travel there.
On the other hand…
This may be only my own usage. A LOT of the IT people I know use the pronunciation that rhymes with ‘outer’ for the piece of networking equipment, even if they say ‘root’ when talking about roads.
Oddly, I say “rowter” too. I say oddly, since route is always root for me, and for most of the people I’ve heard say the word too. I’ve heard a few elderly Mainers say rOWt in local commercials, but other than that…
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