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equestriatola
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09 Aug 2013, 11:04 pm

There are just some things that bother in me in life. Like, for instance, the pronunciation of the letter 'Z'. In the US, it's "Zee", but in Canada, it's "Zed". It makes me wonder, how did we come to this state of jumbled up affairs with that letter?

That is the one thing that sorta bothers me, people.


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jk1
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09 Aug 2013, 11:22 pm

I didn't know Canadians call it "zed". I thought Canadians always follow whatever USAns do.



rapidroy
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09 Aug 2013, 11:22 pm

Yes, this drives me crazy as well. I am Canadian and recall having this debate in Senior Kindergarden with the teacher as she told me in Canada its Zed not Zee, tryed to correct me to say it Zed the issue was I had already learned to say it Zee, Zee also sounded better and more right then Zed in the alphabit song that I had already mostly tought myself prior to kindergarden. So force of habit I say Zee when I see the "Z" charector however I pronounce words with Zed when that is correct to do so, like the word Zeddy or example, he was the Zellers teddy bear.

We actually have very different versons of the english language when it comes to spelling, like colour and color for example, Lieutenant being pronunced Left-tenant in Canada, stupid little stuff like that that most people never realise. Also MS Word and the like usually never provide a Canadian verson of spell check so what are the schools going to do, dock us marks becouse of not using Canadian english.



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09 Aug 2013, 11:36 pm

"Zeta" ... ever since I took Greek back in seminary.



MakaylaTheAspie
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09 Aug 2013, 11:55 pm

I remember getting in trouble for calling it Zee in German class. The teacher would be like: "It's Zett." :roll: :lol:


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equestriatola
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09 Aug 2013, 11:57 pm

In Japan, it's even more complicated. There's 'ze', 'za', 'zo', 'zu' and 'shi'. :)


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Aprilviolets
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10 Aug 2013, 12:07 am

In Australia we say "Zed" but I think because of sesame street and some other childrens shows that come from America some kids are growing up saying "Zee"



TallyMan
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10 Aug 2013, 3:08 am

Zed in the UK. Zee is for Americans.


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babybird
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10 Aug 2013, 5:27 am

Its Zed for me.


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10 Aug 2013, 7:13 am

Never heard of "zed".

I guess its the British way- and all of the commonwealth countries follow the mother country: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, etc., and also say "zed".

BUT..

"zed" does NOT make sense.

Zee makes sense because it ryhmes with C,D, E,G,P,T, and V. No letter ends with "ed". "Zee" fits into the doggerel that enables you to recite the alphabet. And Zed does not. So where is the logic of "zed"? There is no logic.

We Americans have it right!



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10 Aug 2013, 7:21 am

It's like we say zebra not zeebra.


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neurodeviant
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10 Aug 2013, 10:17 am

Zed, as in 'Zed X Spectrum'


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TallyMan
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10 Aug 2013, 11:52 am

Even the French name for the letter Z is pronounced "zed". Though god only knows where they got the pronunciation of the name of the letter Y from "eegrek".


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10 Aug 2013, 12:48 pm

Another unanswered question about the letter Z is why it is crossed by a short horizontal bar in some East European languages. The bar brings no additional information with it.



TallyMan
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10 Aug 2013, 1:25 pm

Krabo wrote:
Another unanswered question about the letter Z is why it is crossed by a short horizontal bar in some East European languages. The bar brings no additional information with it.


I was taught to do that in computer science classes back in the 1980s. It is to make a clear difference between z and 2. Similarly zero had a line through it too to differentiate it from the letter o.


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Krabo
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10 Aug 2013, 2:45 pm

TallyMan wrote:
Krabo wrote:
Another unanswered question about the letter Z is why it is crossed by a short horizontal bar in some East European languages. The bar brings no additional information with it.


I was taught to do that in computer science classes back in the 1980s. It is to make a clear difference between z and 2. Similarly zero had a line through it too to differentiate it from the letter o.


Good point. Only the East European Z has been crossed for centuries. The oh/zero distinction is understandable.

I must try something. This letter Ƶ should display the capital Z with a stroke.



Last edited by Krabo on 11 Aug 2013, 1:39 am, edited 2 times in total.