Velcro shoes.
I knew that Z was sometimes pronounced Zed but I really had no idea that it was an American vs. British & company thing.
I’ve been to Ireland (do they pronounce it Zed there?). I’m seen foreign stuff like Sherlock, Trailer Park Boys, Layercake etc. I know you call elevators lifts and the trunks and hoods of cars are called boots and bonnets respectively. I know over there fanny means pussy, not butt (I’ll leave you to imagine the great deal of physical discomfort the young Englishwoman I was dating went through when she unintentionally educated me on the different meanings).
I’m a fairly well educated man. I know about the difference between the Labour and Conservative parties, I could go into great detail about the Danelaw or William the Conqueror or the British East India company.
I think the Z vs Zed thing just comes up a lot less than you think. The combined population of the UK, Canada and Australia is less than half that of the United States. It makes sense that people in those countries would be exposed to Americanisms more than Americans would be exposed to British/Canadian/Australianisms.
Sure it’s fun to joke about how the average American probably doesn’t know all that much about New Zealand, but how much does the average Kiwi know about say, North Carolina? North Carolina is a state with more than twice the population of New Zealand and more than three times the GDP. So by all means feel free to make some jokes, but do try to keep things in perspective. And if you don’t, we can always crush you with our bloated military budget and reckless foreign policy. Mwahahahahaha bow before our Evil Empire!
All world powers are parochial. It’s amazing what the “Brits” thought about us "Yanks’ (including the use of “Yank”) when they were a world power. When my Dad went over there, most Brits thought Americans were either cowboys or gangsters.
My Brit friend says the proper term for someone from Manchester is “Bloody AIG”. 
Likely means something rather derogatory, knowing him. 
Because lots of people do not know all sorts of trivial facts about other countries (or other things, come to that). Have you actually discussed what Americans call this letter with many (even any) other Australians or New Zealanders? I am confident that if you take the trouble to sample a reasonably large number you will find that many, probably a large majority, of them do not know. Why should they?
Just tidied that up for you.
… or of Canada, which many unconsciously believe to be a US suburb, not a real country… :smack: (to those who said ghetto, no, really, it’s a suburb)
Canada is America’s hat.
Australia is Britain’s inconveniently located Canada.
…I’m confident you would be wrong. I’m a New Zealander and known about the difference for as long as I can remember. Anyone with a TV set knows the difference down here.
Its footie related. All sensible people hate Manchester United and their Scots overlord.
:rolleyes:
And how many have you asked about it? The fact that you know says nothing about how many other New Zealanders know.
How many American TV shows involve people naming letters of the alphabet?
I would have thought Dopers would be a bit more aware that, in such matters, personal anecdote does not equal evidence.
Simple answer- Sesame Street.
I grew up without a TV, but I still knew Z = Zee in the US by the time I was about 6, simply because we all wound up hearing the US version of the alphabet song, and watching the occasional episode of Sesame Street at school.
Ok, I’m English, not Aussie or Kiwi, but the level of exposure to US culture is about the same there as here.
We all think you’re wrong, of course, but we know how you say it.
:: shrugs ::
…as has been pointed out to you: we grew up on Sesame Street. You do realize what prompted this thread, correct? It was prompted by astonishment that Americans didn’t know we used zed not zee. That astonishment was prompted by the fact that nearly everyone here knows that Americans go zee not zed. Its common knowledge. Its like knowing birds can fly and cats like milk. This obviously astonishes you: but its true.
It astonishes me that you assert it with such confidence with out offering a shred of evidence beyond the fact that you personally happen know that Americans say zee. Again, how many other New Zealanders have you discussed this with? A representative sample of the population? One or two? Or none?
I am British, not American. I grew up saying zed. I know Americans say zee, but I don’t remember whether I learned it before I went to live in America. I am by no means confident that most most British people know, however; what I do know is that, despite all the American TV shows and movies I had seen, there were many such little facts about American English that I did not know before living for an extended period in America, and I very much doubt that many other Brits who have not lived for extended periods in the US, or similar Australians or New Zealanders, would know most of them either.
…lets start with you finding one who doesn’t, then, shall we? Or should we start with your challenge, without evidence, in a thread in General Questions, that “I am confident that if you take the trouble to sample a reasonably large number you will find that many, probably a large majority, of them do not know.” Zee is common knowledge outside of the States. If you choose not to believe that its your call. But don’t be confident of what you “believe the results of a survey would be” when you have zero evidence to back it up. There is a wealth of anecdotal evidence that says your hunch is wrong.
That’s cute. However the United States is not an exceptionally culturally-diverse place relative to many other Western countries.
Proportion of resident population who were born in foreign countries:
- Australia 25.4%
- Canada 20.2%
- New Zealand 22.3%
- Ireland 16.7%
- United States 13.7%
- United Kingdom 10.8%
Source: OECD (2008 data).
Thing is, if a person doesn’t know much about cultures outside of his own, he also doesn’t know if those cultures outside of his own are as insular/provincial as his, but may be quite likely to assume they are.
They deliberately use both the “zee” and “zed” pronunciations in the same song, the “zee” coming first. I always liked that. I thought of it as a little “by the way, we’re Brits” moment.
[edit] Brits/Canadians, Wikipedia says. I admit that I am not an expert on All Saints.
I’m not sure that that is a good measure of cultural diversity. Surely it has to be weighted for population size of the countries in question? 300+ million people is diverse, regardless of the coordinates of their place of birth.
It seems to me that is the same kind of criticism as the one about Americans not having passports, which fails to take into account the fact that America is big, and a long way away from anywhere else except Canada and Mexico. It’s not like Liechtenstein, where you travel to another country every time you go shopping.
We Canadians don’t need a song to help us remember the alphabet. 
All right, if someone has mentioned it in this thread I didn’t see it, but here’s a question. I have a recollection of having read something (crime fiction, most likely) set in ireland during The Troubles, where one of the tests used to identify someone who might have infiltrated a group was the recitation of the alphabet. If they said “zed” it meant their sympathies were likely to be one way, “zee,” the other. (Another test was the Lord’s Prayer. I don’t remember which way that one went, either.)
Anybody else recall something like this?