Is it "Zee" or "Zed"?

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That's what I was thinking, too. I heard that the USians attempted to improve the language by making it more logical although they don't seem to have completed it. I live in Australia but when I first learned English, it happened to tend toward the US version of it. So I say both "zee" and "zed".

* *****

I believe that the crossing line in some letters is to differentiate them from similar-looking ones. The hand-written 7 is crossed sometimes, too, for that reason, though I don't do it myself.

Yes, the hand-written "7" is crossed in Finnish.

Huh. The things you learn.

And in Spanish


We also write instead of 4 (Except for me ).

The 7 is also crossed in French. This is to differentiate it from 1 which the French draw with a very long tail on the top diagonal, often right down to the bottom of the number.

You want a mystery?

I'll give you a mystery!

In English what is the name of this letter: W ?

Its "double U".

Why is it called "double U" , and not "double Vee"?

^ From memory, I haven't checked it -- There was no written U in Latin, they spelled it as V, no matter how they pronounced it (that is, either "u" or "v"). Somehow this convention found its way into English language, and the long [oo] sound (as in cool, for example) was originally spelled with "vv" which later evolved into a single letter, w.

In French it IS called "double Vee" ... the French spelling being "doopla-vey"

Yeah, it's "zed" in Commonwealth countries, and "zee" in the US. The US pronunciation fits the song better – which is unsurprising, since the song is originally American. According to Wikipedia, the "zed" pronunciation reflects its derivation from the Greek zeta; other European languages pronounce the letter in a similar way (although sounding closer to "zeta").

The word "lieutenant" is another interesting example of diverging pronunciations: it's pronounced "lew-ten-ant" in the US, and "lef-ten-ant" in Commonwealth countries. The US one seems more intuitive these days; I think the Commonwealth one is related to older pronunciations of u/v in earlier forms of English, as Krabo mentioned earlier.

I wish my head was full of knowledge. Then I'd be able to find out all these interesting things.

Was it the Romans who first brought the art of reading and writing into Britain? Anyways, since the Romans left the island for good, there followed a gap of two centuries in written British history. There simply was no one to write things down. -- Well, my ancestors lived in earth pits in the days of Cerdic of Wessex.

"Zed" is the older and more widespread pronunciation. It's a relative of the Greek "zeta".

My theory is the same as some other posters here: I think that after the US invented the alphabet song, they had to change it to "zee" so that the song would rhyme.

Growing up in modern New Zealand influenced by American children's television, we got the worst of both worlds! We sang the alphabet song, but it didn't rhyme. It always bothered me.

So? Only one letter ends with "ef".



You have it backwards. It seems likely that the invention of the doggerel forced the change. Don't forget, there is no rule that says that a language is supposed to have an alphabet which fits into a rhyming song. Many languages' alphabets are learned as a "rap" instead of a rhyming song.

Last edited by Declension on 11 Aug 2013, 4:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

Krabo, you've made my day.

Actually it's ざza じzi ずzu ぜze ぞzo

しshi is on the "S" row, not the "Z" row. さsa しshi すsu せse そso

Oh and on the subject of this thread. Japanese pronounce the letter "z" zetto or zeddo.

Americans were pronouncing it "zee" well over a hundred years before the alphabet song. I believe the alphabet song was written to indoctrinate the world into pronouncing it the way Americans do. The pronunciation "zee" will prevail. You all can make it easy on yourselves and just except it. Because we are not going to give up on it. OK?