Do I need to explain what is obvious to me? Staffers monitor Metro movements at the Tallawong control centre. Why doesn't the control room just have staff, who control things? Staff sound cheaper to employ than staffers.
Station Controller Riva Shaheen, Chief Controller Daniel Merlino and Station Controller Nicole Radakovic. Australia has changed. No longer are station controllers called Mr Smith, Mr Jones and Miss White. This is good as it is a representation of modern Australia. But I would guess any Australian shareholders in the in the international company that runs Sydney Metro, are called Smith, Jones and White.
I made a comment on someone's YouTube clip. I didn't expect two kisses in the reply, Thank you Andrew xx.
Do we root or rowt?
In Australia we used to pronounce the word route as root, and I still do. But from somewhere, you guess and I'll point, the rowt pronunciation has come to the fore.
I've just said the words route as as a path on a map, and root as in a tree root and my mouth movements are different. Root v. route, it is different, disregarding rowt.
Have I breached your boredom threshold yet? I expect so.
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Get your snout on rout 66.
ReplyDeleteTasker, spot on and I will mention that tomorrow.
DeleteUS pronunciation seem to be winning, slowly . . .
ReplyDeleteJB, no doubt about that, along with words too.
DeleteI thought rout (rowt) was a disorderly retreat. Or a groove cut in a plank.
ReplyDeleteBut what do I know, huh ???
I agree with you JayCee, therefore you know a lot and are exceptionally learned.
DeleteYet ‘Route 66’ is always pronounced the way we recognise…..or is that only in Aus (and other ‘English’ speaking places)
ReplyDeleteCathy, I should think it is pronounced our way in most of the English speaking colonies, sorry, Commonwealth countries plus some.
DeleteI enjoy your rant
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed writing it Roentare. Thanks.
DeleteI am with you on root. Slowly and steadily we are being taken over though.
ReplyDeleteEC, when one big melting pot was mentioned, I didn't realise it meant language.
DeleteI have never heard route pronounced "rowte" thank goodness, and I still use "root" to mean have sex.
ReplyDeleteHels, it is common among public transport workers here and heard in public address announcements in trams. Why it was grasped in that organisation, I do not know.
DeleteDon't get me started. My Australian born children talk about sweaters instead of jumpers, use a rowt rather than a root, and come out with other inappropriate Americanisms!
ReplyDeleteRoute, it's root
And my little pet Kylie, the greats saying elevator instead of lift.
DeleteSee, I knew there was more!
Delete😂😂♥️
ReplyDeleteBlogger should have a like button.
DeleteWe normally say 'rowt' for roads, but you don't go to hell if you say root.
ReplyDeleteDebby, I will mention it the next post but the song line, I'll get my kicks on Route 66, was American. That makes it a little puzzling. I might have to Google this.
DeleteI avoid the issue by saying road or highway.
ReplyDeleteRiver, I hope you don't get a splinter in your bum from that fence you are sitting on.
DeleteI think "rowte" has always been there and is not just an Americanism though if it is gaining ground now (I hadn't noticed) that could be on account of US influence. Also speak-as-you-spell.
ReplyDeleteI first encountered "rowte" when training (for all of 2 days) and then working as a bus conductor in 1978-9, from people who struck me as people who might also have been people who said "fillum" for film or maybe also "haitch" for "aitch" - though in Australia the latter was mostly a "tell" for the convent-educated and later for people taught by them.
To my mind "rowte" is a bit like "CanBERRa" which was an old-school pronunciation I heard on announcements when taking the train there from Sydney in the 1980s. (Different from the amazing pronunciations of station names by NESB station attendants which have now been superseded by recorded announcements.)
Funny that in each case there's a public transport context!
MC, if you think of the song with the lyrics Route 66, it certainly pronounced our was in the US at times, so I agree it is not necessarily a pronunciation from there.
DeleteI roughly remember the year I first heard rowte, about 1986 and I was surprised. I asked someone about the person's pronunciation and I was told he did not like pronouncing it as root as he felt uncomfortable with the sexual meaning of the word. He was a European immigrant, so I doubt he said fillum but possibly did say haitch (public transport worker).
I had forgotten about the CanBERRa and I'm a bit surprised it was used by a government organisation. Do you mean the station attendants often mispronounced place names?
A further public transport connection, I've heard tram staff say rowt and if announcements on trams use the word route, they say rowt.
We need to blame public transport and not Americans for rowt.
Andrew, I started travelling to school by train in fifth class and had a longer trip when I was in high school.
DeleteStation attendants on suburban platforms were often of Mediterranean etc background and spoke with their own feedback/parody of a broad Australian accent. D (who arrived in Australia from Shanghai in 1986) always likes to joke about how they would say (I approximate) "Tauown Hore" (Town Hall) in two very drawn-out syllables.
Eventually announcements by station attendants were replaced by recorded announcements.
I think CanBERRah (obv not a suburban destination) came from older, possibly country NSW people. I heard that when I was living in Canberra in 1982-4 and travelling to and from Sydney.
Guess it's an American word again creeping into the way we Australians say our words, when we are gone our Australian language as we know it will certainly have been changed over time.
ReplyDeleteWas listening to something the other day how our language has changed over time to now - words we never heard of, and some words pronounced totally different to how we say them.
Margaret, that was my immediate assumption but I am not so sure now. Language and words are ever fascinating.
DeleteHow do the English pronounce it?
ReplyDeleteTP, I think they pronounce it as root. Are you familiar with both?
DeleteLovely rant Andrew, and I'll add that when I hear some young people speaking sometimes I literally can't understand a word they are saying, not because I'm deaf or stupid but because apparently it's super cool to speak gibberish........there......I said it 😉
ReplyDeletePS I'm only in my early 60s for goodness sake !
Alison in Wales x
Alison, my about 30 year old niece speaks gibberish. Every sentence is left trailing, if I can understand her rapid fire speech at all.
DeleteAlways good to have a young'un on board. Thanks for your comment.
Smart people are fascinated by these things. Thank you Andrew. Aloha
ReplyDeleteThanks Cloudia. I think I know what you mean.
DeleteI say root but route doesn't seem so foreign to me so I wonder if I use it sometimes.
ReplyDeletePat, you must discipline yourself and cease using rowt, ever.
DeleteI'll be mindful in future.
DeleteWhen I was a kid, my address was Route 2 Box 542E, and we always pronounced it "root."
ReplyDeleteSteve, it has all become quite puzzling.
Delete