7/31/2023 0 Comments Zed or zee![]() ![]() This piece originally appeared on Paul Anthony Jones' Haggard Hawks blog. Though the campaign to resurrect ezod begins here. Whatever the motivation might have been, by the mid-nineteenth century zee had become the standard form of the letter Z in the United States, and has remained so ever since. Alternatively, there mightn’t have been any political reasoning behind it at all, and the name might simply have come to the forefront as American English was forced to adapt and simplify as more and more colonists-coming from ever more distant countries, and speaking an ever more varied array of languages-began arriving in the New World. One widely-held theory is that because zed, as the older of the two, was the most widespread variation amongst British English speakers, during the Revolutionary War American English speakers looking to distance themselves from anything even vaguely British simply adopted the zee version as their own to make a stand-no matter how small it might seem-against British control. This is how it's taught to children in schools, and the name they're familiar with. Now for which you should use in your case: The US almost exclusively uses 'Zee'. But precisely how or why it became the predominant form in American English is unclear. 'Zee' (/zi/) in American English and Newfoundland English (parts of Canada) 'Izzard' (/zrd/) in Scottish English. The name zee itself is thought to have originated as nothing more than a dialect variation of zed, probably influenced by the regular bee, cee, dee, ee pattern of much of the rest of the alphabet. Zee, on the other hand, first appeared in print in a British language textbook- Thomas Lye’s New Spelling-book-in 1677. Zed first appeared in print in the early 1400s, in a Middle English document that fairly straightforwardly described it as “þe laste lettre of þe a b c”-which is considerably nicer than what William Shakespeare had to say about it. Of the two we’re talking about here, however, zed is by far the oldest, and takes its name via French and Latin from that of its Greek equivalent, zeta. Historically, both zed and zee were used pretty much interchangeably in both British and American English, alongside a whole host of other more outlandish names for the last ( or rather, second last) letter of the alphabet, like izzard, uzzard, zad, shard and, our personal favorite, ezod. ![]() In the UK, the police use the ICOA/NATO alphabet for abbreviations, and spelling out car number plates.So zed is British and zee is American, yes? Well, that might be the case today, but once upon a time things were quite different. ![]() Another possibility is that pilots would say "landing zone" in full, and perhaps might not abbreviate it. I am not a pilot, but I did find this link. ![]() I'd like to think all pilots speak the same lingo! There's a distinct possibility that pilots might use the ICOA Spelling Alphabet, sometimes called the NATO Alphabet, to pronounce abbreviations - so that would be Lima Zulu. The answer might be different in your particular example if there is an internationally accepted pronunciation in the aviation industry. Zee is the name of the letter Z in the US, and it's the same pronunciation in abbreviations and when spelling a word out in letters.Īs for LZ, you might find a pilot is the best person to ask. I'm British (Scottish) and would never pronounce the letter Z as zee, under any circumstances. Zed is the pronunciation of the letter Z in the UK and some other Commonwealth countries (if not all of them), also the letter is still pronounced zed in abbreviations, and when spelling a word out in letters. ![]()
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