I just wrote a line of dialogue consisting of the single word "out." Since this is the only word uttered in the scene (making it a monologue, I suppose) I parked on it a minute. And then, I wondered. If I were to write the word phonetically (and, I admit to having an odd accent), I might write 'aut' (short 'a'). Which brings me to my question. To the extent that standard spellings represent pronunciation at all, do they reflect the current pronunciation of words at the time and place they were set, or standardizations of received spellings? I understand, for example (as I believe we once discussed) that (Amer.) Revolutionary War manuscripts contain good information on the pronunciation of Elizabethan English.