Treks or Routes?

There’s a lot of discussion happening in the Facebook group, which is great. I’ve shared this here as well because it also affects the website, and our long-term site users may like to give their thoughts.

Haha Michelle, I haven't been on FB as I'm not 16 yet lol Joke !!

Is this Route as in Toot or Route as in Out.
Dave.

David M
I’m sure our resident pedant will soon let you know ;)

Route, oot or out, depends on the American influence I think , I’ve always used oot!
A router is a woodworking tool , I’m not sure what to say a rooter is ! LOL
Well made me laugh anyway!

.
Route is a French word so pronunciation herewith.. Straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

Ah yes but loan words undergo significant pronunciation changes. Is it Norman French, the later Parisian dialect, did it become a loan word before or after the Middle English 'great vowel shift'.
Here's a discussion from Kevin Stroud's History of English podcast
"I should also note that there are a few other words where the pronunciation varies – where some
people pronounce the word with the older vowel sound and some people use the modern vowel sound. For example, think about the pronunciation of the word spelled ‘r-o-u-t-e.’ Some people use the original pronunciation – /ru:t/. And some people use the newer pronunciation altered by the Great Vowel Shift – /raut/. As recently as the 1700s, both pronunciations were common in
Britain and North America. But in the 1800s, the pronunciation as /raut/ largely fell out of use in Britain. So in Britain, route /ru:t/ has fallen in line with words like through, wound and youth where the original vowel sound had been retained. So that’s a case where the vowel started to shift to /au/, but then it was pulled back to /u:/. But in the US, both pronunciations of that word can be found today. So in American English, the vowel in that word has partially shifted, but it remains in a bit of flux. "

Well Allan you did bring it up.

.
No Warren, it must be the current pronunciation. I do keep my computer up to date.
And I did not "bring it up", David started it then Wicket said that you would "soon let us know".
I just found that nice French lady who surely must know.

So Warren,

Should Kevin Stroud’s name be pronounced “Strood” or “Straud” ? :-)

Macca.

He chooses the latter. The whole 13 years of the podcast is very entertaining, I recommend it. Loan words that entered English after the great vowel shift generally retained their original unshifted vowel sound, as other European languages did not have the same comprehensive changes to vowel sounds, think cafe and pizza for example.