Is it Zed or zee?

Regardless of which pronunciation you use, people will usually know which letter you're referring to! But, keep in mind that zed is technically the correct version in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Canada, India, Australia, and New Zealand, and zee is technically correct in the United States.

Is Z pronounced Zee or zed?

Zed is the name of the letter Z. The pronunciation zed is more commonly used in Canadian English than zee. English speakers in other Commonwealth countries also prefer the pronunciation zed.

Is it zed or Zee in English?

Zee is the American way of saying the letter z. Zed is the British way. Neither is right or wrong, and nobody is ignorant for pronouncing z the way they do. The zed pronunciation is older, and it more closely resembles the Greek letter, zeta, from which the English letter is derived.

Is it zed or Zee Australia?

In most English-speaking countries, including Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, the letter's name is zed /zɛd/, reflecting its derivation from the Greek zeta (this dates to Latin, which borrowed Y and Z from Greek), but in American English its name is zee /ziː/, analogous to the ...

Is it Zee or zed in South Africa?

It appeared in print for the first time in the early 1400s in a Middle English manuscript. In the United Kingdom and countries where Commonwealth English is used, like Australia, India, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Africa, zed is the pronunciation for the letter “z.”

Why Do Some English Speaking Countries Pronounce Z as "Zed" and Others as "Zee"?

Why do Americans say Zee and not Zed?

Zee became the standard way to pronounce Z in the United States in the 19th century. It's said that zee most likely came about because it rhymes with other letter pronunciations in the English alphabet (e.g., e, d, c, b, g, and p).

Why do Canadians pronounce Z as Zed?

That is also the common pronunciation in most other English speaking countries except the United States. Most English-speaking countries prounce the letter Z as “zed”. There are good reasons for this, as it derived from its cognates in German (tset) and Greek (zeta).

Why do the Americans say aluminum?

The American Chemical Society adopted “aluminum” because of how widely it was used by the public, but the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry officially designated the metal as “aluminium” as recently as 1990.

Why do British people say leftenant?

This courtesy developed when swords were still used on the battle field. The lower ranked soldier on the "left" protected the senior officers left side. Therefore, the term leftenant developed.

Why do Americans say Mom?

Mom and Mommy are old-English words, words that are stilled used in Birmingham and most parts of the West Midlands. It is said that when people from the West Midlands went to America many years ago they took the spelling with them, hence Americans use Mom and Mommy.

Why do Americans say erbs?

Why do some Americans pronounce herb as erb? The word's origin is French, and there the “h” is silent. US speakers tend to keep that silent H. British speakers tend to make the pronunciation more purely English, and pronounce the H.

Why does America use Z instead of S?

It's just a difference in spelling conventions. The Z is more phonetic, and most US-UK spelling differences have the US being more phonetic. In this case, the Z spelling also has a longer pedigree, because the -ize suffix is from a Greek suffix which is transliterated -izein in Roman letters.

Why do British people say mum?

The short answer is that the two nations do speak different dialects of English. Additionally, neither the use of language nor the use of these different dialects is bound by distinct geographical borders. This is why 'mum' and 'mom' show up in other parts of the world outside of USA and the UK.

Why do British people say maths?

The UK version is more logical. Math is an abbreviation of mathematics, which is a count noun in British English because there are different types of maths (geometry, algebra, calculus, etc.) and a mass noun that happens to end in an 's' in American English (like gymnastics in both dialects).

Why do Americans pronounce colonel as kernel?

By around the 17th century, the word began appearing in military treaties across Europe. So, the written form of the word (colonel) and the spoken ("kernel") were both being used. In English, a combination won out. Colonel was spelled c-o-l-o-n-e-l but pronounced "kernel."

Why do Americans pronounce colonel with an R?

Why is the word “colonel” pronounced with an “r” sound when it is not spelled with an “r”? “Colonel” came to English from the mid-16th-century French word coronelle, meaning commander of a regiment, or column, of soldiers. By the mid-17th century, the spelling and French pronunciation had changed to colonnel.

Why is the l in salmon not pronounced?

The word comes ultimately from the Latin salmon, but we got it by way of French, as we did with so many other food words. The French, as was their wont, had swallowed up the Latin L in their pronunciation, so by the time we English borrowed the word, it was saumon, no L in the spelling and so no L in the pronunciation.

Why do Canadians say sorry?

Saying sorry in Canada has been labelled reflexive courtesy. It's a social convention. In some cases it's the person who didn't do anything wrong who says 'sorry' to acknowledge that, although they might be upset, they aren't going to take it personally.

Is it Haitch or Aitch?

H, or h, is the eighth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is aitch (pronounced /ˈeɪtʃ/, plural aitches), or regionally haitch /ˈheɪtʃ/.