How do you pronounce ‘route’ and ‘root’?

Recently, I wrote a post about Historic US Route 66. So …

How do you pronounce the word ‘route’? The nationally accepted way in the U.S. is to say it the same way as the nationally accepted pronunciation of ‘root’ which both rhyme with ‘boot’.

Growing up in Chicago, though, we said the word ‘route’ the same way people say ‘military rout’ to rhyme with ‘out.’

The fashion that we Chicagoans say ‘root’ is also at variance with national usage. We pronounce ‘root’ to rhyme with ‘foot’. For Chicagoans, this is the same vowel that occurs the word ‘roof’. This word rhymes with the sound that dogs make: ‘woof.’

I’ve heard these pronunciations from people who come from Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota. If I’m not mistaken, I’ve also heard these pronunciation from residents of Kansas City.

I don’t have anyone from Southern Illinois in my informal survey or from elsewhere in the Midwest besides the locations that I mentioned. My informants are older people who were born in these Midwestern states and who have not spent much time elsewhere in the country.

My own pronunciation changed to the nationally accepted way sometime during my life, but I don’t know why or when. I studied in Brooklyn for four years, but I don’t speak like a Brooklyner. Other than that, I’ve lived mostly in the Chicago area, except for ten years in Kansas City, until four years ago.

My impression is that the way we spoke in Chicago is the way people speak in the entire middle of the country. I’ve heard that some localisms came along with the railroads. Chicago is the railroad hub of the nation. It stands to reason that people who left Chicago for opportunities outward bound brought their local, Chicago speech with them.

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While I’m at it, how do you pronounce ‘Chicago’, the city’s name? The people of the Chicago region and elsewhere in the Midwest pronounce the name of the city as shih KAW go, not like elsewhere in the country where they say the city’s name as shih KAH go. As far as I’m concerned, shih KAW go is the authentic name of the city.

Early on, when Frank Sinatra sang the song “Chicago, Chicago — My Home Town,” he gave it away that he’s from elsewhere. He sang, “shih KAH go, shih KAH go.” On the other hand, when Sinatra sang the song “My Kind of Town, Chicago Is” before a live crowd in 1982, he sang, “shih CAW go.”

Go figure.

‘I got my licks on Route 66’

In 2009, I was driving back to Kansas City from Chicago by way of Interstate 55 between Chicago and St. Louis. This route had once been designated as “US 66.” It stretched from Chicago to Santa Monica, California.

The actual highway number 66 was decommissioned in 1985, though, since the federal interstate highway system had supplanted all the earlier national roads like Route 66. A movement to venerate the highway and what it stood for swelled. Some states renumbered the remaining sections of the “Mother Highway” as state route 66. By now, remaining segments that are used for traffic have been designated across the country as Historic Route US 66, with states adding their name to the signage as you see.

My trip was leisurely. My curiosity prevailed, and I made two stops to visit the old highway. This above sign is from Lincoln, Illinois, where 66 had passed through the town on city streets as it had before it was rebuilt on the outskirts as a 4-lane divided highway that bypassed Lincoln. This rebuilding process in Illinois began after World War II. Segments were taken over for Interstate 55.

This next picture depicts Historic 66 as it passes toward the downtown of Lincoln, Illinois, on an ordinary street. National highways ran point to point from the center of one town or city to the next center.

These two pictures show the old highway’s original pavement as it proceeds out of Odell, Illinois, and wanders through the vast corn fields. The car is my old 2004 Dodge Neon that I acquired used in 2006 and relinquished in 2020 for a new 2018 Kia Rio. The Rio was my first car that didn’t have a previous owner.

Notice the Illinois license plate, if you can. I had been living in Kansas for a year already and hadn’t yet registered it in Kansas. There is a story here but not now.

I took a picture of this display in Interstate 55’s Funks Grove rest area. As you see, it commemorates Illinois’s section of Route 66. You also see the slogan that’s the title of this post “Get Your Licks on Route 66.” However, I’ve always heard the slogan as “Get Your Kicks on Route 66.” I was getting my kicks on my side-trips. I don’t know what ‘licks’ means or refers to.

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“Get Your Kicks on Route 66” is a 1946 song recorded by Nat King Cole.