The tromp/tramp distinction

I don't use the word "tromp" very often, but some instinct made me say it in that post 2 posts down about shaming the upper-middle class into giving up their tax breaks. I thought guilt-tripping was "tromping about in the darker parts of our psyche."

Meade asked why I said "tromp," instead of "tramp," and I said "tromp" — which has a whiff of "stomp" — seems to suggest a heavier, clumsier stepping about in a more localized place, perhaps inside, and "tramp" seems more like a journey somewhere — maybe off into a landscape. Also, with "tramp," you might feel the leakage of slutty women and hobo men.

In the (unlinkable) OED, I discovered that "tromp" is a "variant... of tramp" that's mostly American dialect. Some notable examples make the Americanness really pop:

1895 S. Crane Red Badge of Courage x. 105 Yeh wanta go trompin' off.

1902 Dial. Notes 2 248 He tromped my toe.

1931 W. Faulkner Sanctuary vi. 54 You'll tromp on a loose boa'd and find yoself downstairs befo you know hit....

1952 E. Ferber Giant xx. 334 You want to look out, Bick, she don't get tromped the way they're milling around today....

1962 J. Steinbeck Trav. with Charlie i. 12 About that time hurricane Donna was reported tromping her way out of the Caribbean.

1974 J. Irving 158-Pound Marriage v. 117 Edith heard Frau Reiner and the Chetniks whispering and tromping about in the living room....

I like how most of those examples confirm my sense that tromping happens in a more localized space — like your brain, when the guilt-trippers get there.