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I think he means "zer" as in, when you are young you go through the alphabet like..

Ah, Buh, Cuh, Duh, Eh..



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ZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



I say Zee. But I have heard of people calling it Zed and I believe that is actually the correct pronunciation of it, at least the original way anyway, things change over time though.



PC Gamer
SeriousWB said:
I think he means "zer" as in, when you are young you go through the alphabet like..

Ah, Buh, Cuh, Duh, Eh..

 

yeh. you got it lol. thats what i ment. sorry for any fuss it might of coursed

 



Hello to the members of the forum. This looks like a good place to make my first post.

Maybe this article sums up the use of the last letter of the English alphabet:
At this year’s Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee, a purse-lipped, snooty spelling official succumbed to an on-camera hissy fit when a Canadian girl contestant had the temerity to spell a word and use zed as the name of the last letter of the English alphabet. “We’d prefer zee,” sibilated the prissy prune of a spelling judge. Then why, American sir, would you invite the English-speaking world to your spelling bee and not have the civility to permit both names of the letter, zed and zee, to be used? Must American neo-isolationism and provincialism descend even to a simple children’s contest?

Zed is the name of the letter in Great Britain, India, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and most other places on earth where English is used. But in America they call it zee. Fine. That does not appear to be a problem of planet-shattering consequence. Yet Canadians, like me, were generally miffed at American officialdom casting scorn on our pronunciation. For that reason CTV National News came to my humble abode and digitized a short TV clip for broadcast Friday, June 3, 2005. Their viewers wished to know the origin of the two names, zed and zee. Was one letter name correct and the other wrong? Well, here’s the answer.

Z is the twenty-sixth and last letter of the English alphabet. The nutshell story of zed? Zed entered Middle English from French representing a “ts” or “ds” sound, then came to represent the voiced sibilant in, for example, the word zoo.

Because it entered French from Latin as zeta, it became zède in modern French, zeta in modern Spanish and Italian, and zed in English. The Romans borrowed the letter from the Greeks where it is zeta. The Greeks borrowed it from the Phoenicians where it was zayin. The Phoenicians were a Semitic trading people who shipped goods all over the ancient Mediterranean Sea. We may think of our modern “Roman” alphabet as the Phoenicians’ most precious cargo. The letter is still known as zayin in modern Hebrew, as it was in ancient Hebrew.

Zed was not uttered affectionately from the lips of every English speaker. Hundreds of years after it entered our alphabet, certain literary types were still bitching about it. “Thou whoreson Zed, thou unnecessary letter!” yells Kent to Oswald during their slanging fight in Act 2 of Shakespeare’s King Lear.

The letter name zee, now American, was not invented in America, as several bumptious and jingoist American websites suggest. The letter has actually had eight or more names during its long sojourn at the bottom of the English alphabet: zad, zard, zed, zee, ezed, ezod, izod, izzard, uzzard. One of those names is zee, a dialect form last heard in England during the late seventeenth century. That name was brought to America by British immigrants, perhaps not on the Mayflower but very early indeed in American history.

Another English dialect form is izzard, from mid-eighteenth-century English, perhaps from French et zède meaning and z, or else from s hard. Or, as I believe but cannot prove, izzard is simply as an r-infix form of izod that arose in an English dialect where speakers liked to insert r-sounds into r-less word endings. In Scotland the letter’s name has been at various times in history ezod and izod. Even uzzard shows up as a legitimate name of the letter.

In the first great dictionary of English in 1755 (there were other, lesser wordlists printed earlier), Dr. Johnson opined “Z . . . zed, more commonly izzard or uzzard.” The names izzard and uzzard have not totally melted in the obscuring fog of history. Check this 1947 opinion from the Court of Appeals of Kentucky: “If this contract is valid, its provisions are all binding and effective from A to Izzard.” From A to izzard is a folk expression now rare or vanished that implies inclusivity.

In 1828 Noah Webster, the mighty American wielder of word clout, guaranteed that zee would predominate in the United States. In Webster’s magisterial American Dictionary of the English Language he stated: “Z . . . It is pronounced zee.”

The Concise Oxford Companion states, “The modification of zed ... to zee appears to have been by analogy with bee, dee, vee, etc.” Lye’s New Spelling Book (1677) was the first to list “zee” as a correct pronunciation.

In Canada, zed is losing ground to zee. Yes, spelling bee child contestants may still loyally use zed, but in the broader population of young Canadians brought up watching American TV, many, many teenagers and twenty-somethings use zee.


It isn't a big deal really, other than the fact that popular culture (film, television and music) is polluting the rest of the English speaking world, in what is probably a form of cultural colonialism.

In my parts it is Zed. Also, it is virtually only America that places its dates month/day. For example, it was 11/9, not 9/11. Why can't America simply fall into line with the rest of the world instead of trying to dominate and change other cultures?

The local variation of English is what makes it such a great language really. For example, fanny outside of America is the female genitals. Root, as in to root for others, means sex in Australia. Spunk in England means semen, not courage as in America. Makes for a good laugh.

Other simple variations:
Lorry = truck
Boot = trunk
Bonnet = hood
Trolley = cart
Torch = flashlight
Panel = fender
Nappy = daiper
Dummy = pacifier
Football = soccer

and so on.

So, are you a welcoming lot? I hope you are.



COMING SOON!

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Galaki said:
US = Zee (boss)
Canada = Zed (lame)

 Fixed



Zee, Zed, it doesn't matter, all you have to worry about it ZOD!

Kneel before Zod!



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I say Zee.
I hear people say them both.



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ah ignorant americans.. Zed is how many people say it here in Canada.