{"id":5866,"date":"2020-10-24T00:46:50","date_gmt":"2020-10-24T00:46:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/?p=5866"},"modified":"2024-04-20T15:21:25","modified_gmt":"2024-04-20T15:21:25","slug":"fun-facts-79-zee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/blog\/2020\/10\/24\/fun-facts-79-zee\/","title":{"rendered":"Fun Facts About English #79 – The Letter Z"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Kinney<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In most English-speaking countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Zambia, and Australia, the name of the letter Z<\/em> is zed<\/em>, pronounced \/z\u025bd\/. Zed<\/em> takes its name via French and Latin from the Greek equivalent, zeta<\/em>. <\/em>In American English, its name is zee<\/em> \/zi\u02d0\/. Zee<\/em> is thought to have originated from a late 17th-century British dialect and influenced by the bee<\/em>, cee<\/em>, dee<\/em>, ee<\/em> pattern of much of the alphabet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This British dialectical form was likely what the English Puritan minister and author, Thomas Lye [Leigh, Lee], was drawing from when he published his New Spelling Book<\/em> in England in 1677; the full title of which is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A New Spelling Book, Or, Reading and Spelling English Made Easie: Wherein All the Words of Our English Bible are Set Down in an Alphabetical Order and Divided Into Their Distinct Syllabls<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time of its publishing, Britain was home to a variety of dialectical pronunciations of the letter Z<\/em> that included zed<\/em>, zod<\/em>, zad<\/em>, zard<\/em>, ezod<\/em>, izzard<\/em>, and uzzard<\/em>. Samuel Johnson, in his highly influential Dictionary of the English Language<\/em> published in London in 1755, referenced izzard<\/em> as the name of the letter. In King Lear<\/em>, 150 years earlier, Shakespeare had used zed<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Lye,<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Beginning in the 1600s, zee<\/em> and other British pronunciations made the voyage across the Atlantic to colonial America. By 1883, British historian, Edward Augustus Freeman, noted that zee<\/em> was mainly found in (formerly Puritan) New England, while zed<\/em> was the accepted form in the American South. Areas such as Philadelphia vacillated between the two. He also noted that not a few Americans still used izzard<\/em>, a fact that tickled his British funny bone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, by the 19th century, zee<\/em> became firmly established in the U.S. with several important developments. New England born, Noah Webster, published his own American Spelling Book<\/em> in 1794 with the letter “ze.” In 1828, Webster also published A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language<\/em> asserting the pronunciation of the letter Z<\/em> as “zee.” Finally, “The Alphabet Song,” copyrighted in 1835 and published by Boston-based music publisher, Charles Bradlee, rhymed Z<\/em> with “me.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

FYI: The tune of “The Alphabet Song” is based on the 18th-century French song “Ah, vous dirai-je, maman” and popularized by Mozart. The melody is also used in other children\u2019s songs such as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s worth noting that, like zee<\/em>, Webster also defined the standards of American spelling for words like theater<\/em> for theatre<\/em> and honor<\/em> for honour<\/em>,” spellings that were not invented by Webster himself. These were spelling variants in use in the English language, including in Britain. Webster simply chose to institute one variation as a standard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Britain was undergoing a similar change, namely a push-back against izzard<\/em> and its variants. Sticking with the etymological legacy of its French origins (z\u00e9de), zed<\/em> became enshrined as the proper name of the letter in British English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, it’s important to remember, unlike most major languages in the world, English has never had a regulatory body that governed its use – anywhere nor at any time. As for slinging tired arrows at the U.S. for its “unilateral” divergence from British English, let’s reflect on the idea that even today, in a country the size of Louisiana, England has over 40 dialects (compared to 24 in the whole U.S.) and a long legacy of myriad spelling and pronunciation variations. Over several centuries and 4000 miles apart, the notion of a culturally freeze-dried, correct language and orthography simply didn’t exist, on either side of the pond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You might also be interested to learn why North Americans pronounce R<\/em> differently<\/a> than the British, why rooster<\/em> is the preferred euphemism<\/a> in American English, or why English has no language academy<\/a>! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Go to the previous<\/a> or next<\/a> Fun Facts About English<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Donald's<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I Have\/Who Has are excellent exercises in reading, speaking, and listening! Click here<\/a> to see how you can make this simple activity walk across the room! Check out all the I Have\/Who Has activity sets<\/a> in Donald’s English Classroom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In most English-speaking countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Zambia, and Australia, the name of the letter Z is zed, pronounced \/z\u025bd\/. Zed takes its name via French and Latin from the Greek equivalent, zeta. In American English, its name is zee \/zi\u02d0\/. Zee is thought to have originated from a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[94],"tags":[620,643,240,20,104,11,538,874,872,529,873,194,875,355],"class_list":{"0":"post-5866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fun-facts-about-english","8":"tag-american-english","9":"tag-british-english","10":"tag-dialects","11":"tag-donalds-english-classroom","12":"tag-english-language","13":"tag-kinney-brothers-publishing","14":"tag-language-history","15":"tag-language-variation","16":"tag-letter-z","17":"tag-linguistic-evolution","18":"tag-orthography","19":"tag-pronunciation","20":"tag-zed","21":"tag-zee","22":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/079-1.jpg?fit=1252%2C1252&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8GlQB-1wC","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5866"}],"version-history":[{"count":78,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10993,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5866\/revisions\/10993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}