Oh dear, I’m sorry if I caused any offense – none was intended. I just had the realisation that it really would have irritated me if I’d learned it as a child, that’s all.
I’m quite certain I’m not the first person to note the problems with this little ditty.
We had “kicking kuh”.
I am sure someone has found a reason to ban that these days.
My sister’s party trick is to recite the alphabet very quickly as abuhcuhduhefuhguhhuhijuhkerlermmm
It took me years of living in America before I realized the significance of the z in eee-zed up.
We used that alphabet song in Canada too. If we were feeling clever we might tack on something about going to bed at the end to help the song resolve (eg. “Doubleyu, ecks, why and zed, now I know my ABC’s, now it’s time to go to bed”).
Also, is anyone else a fan of the bad Zed Zed Top?
When I sleep I have neither zees nor zeds floating over me. I have a saw cutting through a log.
We had a workbook for each letter and the letter was on the cover in a sandpaper texture. Loved that.
It would be tough to learn the letter and its pronunciation for those letters with many ways to say them.
Oh, and according to my pop, a sneeze is snooooooooort, puff, puff, puff. Not a zed to be found.
WWWWWWAH? Nah, more like WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Come to think of it, that would be how I read ‘zzzzzzzz’ too. It’s neither zeezeezeezeezee or zedzedzedzedzed. If it’s supposed to indicate the sound of snoring neither pronunciation makes sense.
Right. Also seen in “EZPass” – an automated toll-paying system used in the northeastern US. Or the “1040-EZ”, a simplified income tax form issued by the Internal Revenue Service.
By the way, for you Commonwealth people pronouncing “zebra” with a short “e”, how do you pronounce “zero”? (No fair responding with “nil”, or “naught”!)
I’ve called them that in the past - on purpose, to annoy or perplex, but it always falls flat.
A snore, not a sneeze :smack: I guess I felt I had to include a zed.
“Zerro”. Like “Zorro”, but with an “E”.
That doesn’t provide any information - the E is what is being asked about. I think the main contenders would be “zeer-oh” or “zerr-oh”.
What I have never understood is how to Americans not confuse
c cee with z zee ? (When given verbally)
I have a hard time being understood on the phone, this would drive me nuts
We say “z as in zebra” or “c as in charlie,” or something like that.
“Zerr-oh” was the pronunciation I was describing.
Z as in Zulu, and C as in Charlie actually.
Zulu is one that is common to most cultures, and thus not open to misinterpretation, hence its use in the standard phonetic alphabet.
Generally I hear it pronounced zee-ro. How do you pronounce zenith?
One of the funniest conversations I ever heard was the one between the woman in the next cubicle who grew up in central Georgia in conversation with an operator in London, Ontario, trying to arrange a report that was to be printed using class Z on our system.
Zee vs Zed was the start of their problem, but it got much worse, very fast. I finally had to act as an interpreter, relying on my second language skills picked up from listening to Ontario radio stations CHYR and CKWW when I lived in Michigan. (CKLW was just an American station on the South side of the Canadian border, so it didn’t count.)