If you pronounce roof to rhyme with hoof, you’re not alone. Millions of people all over the U.S. say it that way, though the pronunciation with the long o sound is more common. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Roof and Hoof?”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, my name is Dorothy. I live in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. It’s a suburb of Milwaukee.
Wauwatosa.
Welcome to the show, Dorothy. How can we help you?
Well, I was just calling because it amazes me. I go to Florida in the wintertime, and I had to have a new, what I say, roof put on my home in Florida. And I mentioned to one of the neighbors said I was having this roof installed and he said a what and I said a roof put on my house and I do have two little dogs and then he laughed and he said oh I think you’re with your dogs too much you’re starting to talk like them I thought what are you talking about you know and he said it’s not a roof it’s a roof and I said well I always said a roof and they just laughed they never heard of anything like that, and they were from Massachusetts.
And I was just wondering, which was the proper pronunciation, or if it depends on where you live. Like in New Hampshire, they say we park the car, and everybody talks differently right here in the States.
Yeah, we do, don’t we?
You got that right.
Well, let me ask you a couple other questions. What do you say for R-O-O-T?
Oh, root.
You don’t say root?
No.
What do you say for R-O-O-M?
The room.
Yeah, that’s true. And one woman, when I was in the pool in Florida, she said, well, of course it’s roof. She’s from New Hampshire. She said, oh, oh is ooh. And I said, well, then what would you call a sweater that somebody knit for you? A wool sweater? It’s wool. And then she shut up.
Yeah, or hoof, or foot.
I don’t know. So you say roof?
I’m going to put that in a book.
Yeah, book, hoof, foot.
There are plenty of double O’s in English that sound exactly like the way that you say roof. This is a classic American dialect split, but it’s interesting.
It’s not very geographically pronounced. It is a little more common in the South Atlantic, the Gulf states, New England. But it’s fairly sprinkled around the country, and a lot of the people who say roof do also say room, broom, root, things like that. But it’s not completely consistent.
And it all goes back to our language heritage in the United Kingdom, where many people also still say things like ruff. But they are slowly adopting the ruff pronunciation as well.
I see.
Yeah.
So it is widespread. I mean, we’re talking millions of people say ruff. I mean, it’s not like there’s a handful of people. It is so pronounced, very well studied, the kind of thing that’s going to come up in a sociolinguistics 101 class. That’s how well known it is.
It’s not like you and your dogs are wrong.
No, your dogs are right.
That’s good.
That’s good.
But, you know, before I was talking to you, I was thinking about that. And another word, and I think that is all over the United States, that I would say 90% of people mispronounce, and that is realtor.
Everybody says realtor.
Yeah, you want a vowel between the L and the T, don’t you? Your tongue almost demands a vowel there.
Yeah, it seems that way.
But anyway, the roof-roof thing, I thought was… The folks in Florida and the lady from New Hampshire, you know, maybe they need to get out more because it’s very widespread. I’m surprised they didn’t hear it.
I think Dan Rather even had a couple of those pronunciations like that.
Room.
Really? He’s from Texas, right?
A big room.
Huh.
Yeah.
Well, I appreciate you bringing this to our attention, Dorothy. Just go ahead and roof all you want.
Roof, roof, roof.
You’re totally fine. All right?
Okay.
It’s a great American dialect feature. Don’t worry about it.
Okay, I will do that.
Use it with pride.
Take care now.
All right, bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Email words@waywordradio.org.
