insinuated that those of us who don't differentiate between those vowels are pronouncing things improperly As to this, I'm just a stick(ler) in the mud. But as to lout/loud. Loud ends up so much longer than lout. , well, y'all people are just weird! Eep--I just tried it, and be danged if loud isn't just a little bit longer! Oops!
Aside: isn't it neat, that your thread that seemed to start out as being relevant to just a few, has transmogrified and grown the way it has?