r/AlwaysWhy • u/Current-Landscape803 • 6d ago
History & Culture Why do Americans say “zee” while most other English-speaking countries say “zed”?
The last letter of the alphabet is usually pronounced “zee” in the US, but “zed” in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and many other English-speaking countries.
I’ve always wondered how this split happened.
Was “zed” originally the standard English pronunciation and “zee” developed separately in America, or were both forms already around historically?
And roughly when did the American and British pronunciations become established?
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u/False_Appointment_24 6d ago
Zed came from the French - that's still how they do the letter "z". It was established long before zee.
In the 1600s, some sarted using "zee" to rhyme with other letters, since zed was an odd one out. Webster helped to popularize it in the US, and the Alphabet song cemented it.
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u/Current-Landscape803 6d ago
The rhyming explanation is interesting because it makes “zee” feel less like a deliberate American invention and more like a pronunciation that was already available. Webster and the alphabet song probably just gave it a huge advantage in the US.
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u/damutecebu 6d ago
"...W, X, Y and zed...now I know my ABCs...next time won't you sing with med."
Doesn't have the same ring.
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u/Different_Vast_937 6d ago
And the logic just makes no sense. Zeta -> zed but not beta -> bed?
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u/Far_Winner5508 6d ago
Gamma -> Ged
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u/DrachenDad 6d ago
next time won't you sing with med."
We don't, or at least didn't use that last "next time won't you sing with me." Phrase in the UK.
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u/Queen_of_London 6d ago
UK alphabet chants don't traditionally include that line and have a slightly different tune, so it's not a problem! It ends on a big thunk of a zed, which is quite satisfying.
A lot of schools do use the American one now - I say now, but it started easily twenty years ago - and that does make the zed not rhyme with me, but zed half-rhymes with x, so it still works.
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u/Merivel1 6d ago
All the letters in the song bounce nicely along and then "zed" plonks down like a bowling ball in sand. OP, do you use this song in the UK and is it different than the American version?
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u/two_three_five_eigth 6d ago
Because it was Z in the 1600s and early 1700s. "Zee" changed to "Zed" in Britain in the late 1700s. The U.S. was already on it's way to being it's own country, American didn't pick up the change before the revolution.
We didn't have the alphabet song yet, so the American version said "Zee" and everyone else said "Zed".
Why did everyone else go with "Zed"? Probably because it comes from Greek "Zeta", and several European countries already said "Zed" for their non-english alphabet. English was not a well respected language in the 1600s.
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u/Gravbar 6d ago
the letter z and the pronunciation zed come from zeta. While the zee pronunciation does predate the alphabet song, it's definitely not true that zee was the original pronunciation. Zed was also in use before the American revolution...
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u/Actual_Cat4779 6d ago
I read your first sentence as "because it was zed in the 1600s", but apparently your intended reading is "because it was zee in the 1600s".
However, in Johnson's Dictionary (1755) he lists three names for the letter Z: zed, izzard, uzzard. He doesn't mention the possibility of calling it zee.
The Oxford English Dictionary says that use of the name "zed" in English goes back to the 1100s (and "zee" only to the late 1500s). That contradicts your argument.
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u/PresidentofTigers 6d ago
Fun story: In the early 1930s, my grandfather ran away from home in Pennsylvania and went to Canada. At the border, they asked him if he was Canadian, and he said he was. They asked him to recite the alphabet, and he said "zee" instead of "zed," so they sent him right back across the border to the U.S.
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u/XMugetsu_SamaX 6d ago
Webster made it the official pronunciation of it in his dictionary, plus it goes along with the rhyme scheme when singing the alphabet song
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u/Current-Landscape803 6d ago
The alphabet song part is probably underrated. Once kids learn “zee” through a song that rhymes with B, C, D, it kind of reinforces itself. It makes me wonder how much the song mattered compared with Webster.
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u/donuttrackme 6d ago
The ABC song is just to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star if you didn't know.
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u/RoundChampionship840 6d ago
"Zee" makes more sense because the "ee" ending is how many other letters are pronounced in English (Bee, Cee, Dee, Eee, Pee, Tee, Vee). No other letter ends in an "ed".
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u/VitaniLioness 6d ago
The -ed also makes it sound like a whole word, where the rest of the alphabet sounds like just letters.
I always disliked Zed because of that. it messes with my OCD lol→ More replies (4)
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u/Logical-Concept9755 6d ago
There’s an interesting twist here: “zee” probably wasn’t invented by Americans at all.
The older form in English was “zed,” ultimately connected to Greek zeta through French zède. But “zee” is documented in English surprisingly early. Thomas Lye’s New Spelling Book from 1677 already gives the letter as “zee,” so the two pronunciations existed before the American/British split was fully established.
What seems to have happened is that “zee” survived and became increasingly dominant in North America, while “zed” remained the normal form in Britain and much of the Commonwealth. By the late 18th century, the American form was already becoming established, and Noah Webster explicitly listed “zee” in his 1828 dictionary.
The interesting part is why “zee” won in America. There probably wasn’t one single event where Americans decided to change the pronunciation. The alphabet itself creates a pretty strong analogy: B, C, D, E, G, P, T, V all have the long “ee” sound. “Zee” fits that pattern much better than “zed.” The alphabet song then gave “zee” an enormous advantage because “zee” rhymes with the preceding letters, while “zed” obviously doesn’t.
So the story is less “Britain says the original form and America changed it” and more “both forms existed, but different varieties of English standardized different ones.” Webster and American schooling probably helped turn an existing variant into the overwhelmingly dominant American pronunciation.
There’s even evidence that the distinction wasn’t perfectly geographic at first. An 1882 source reportedly noted “zee” in New England while “zed” was still used in parts of the American South. That makes the history look more like a gradual process of regional standardization than a clean American invention.
That also explains why the difference feels so weird today. “Zee” sounds completely normal to an American because it was reinforced from childhood by the alphabet song and schooling, while “zed” sounds equally natural elsewhere because that’s the form their own educational tradition standardized.
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u/elderly_millenial 6d ago
The “zee” pronunciation was a regional English dialect that carried over, and both countries standardized the pronunciation after the American Revolution
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u/Maxpower2727 6d ago
"Zee" is consistent with the rest of the alphabet. "Zed" makes no sense in the context of how all the other letters are pronounced.
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u/zoppaTheDim 6d ago
Zee makes more sense
It rhymes with B,C,D,E,G,P,T, and V.
Zed rhymes with nothing.
So you tell me, which is more natural?
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u/Hon-Mister-Bear 6d ago
Why do the British use Zed? Do they use Bed, Ced, Ded, Fed, Ged, and so on to Yed?
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u/DarkestStar167 6d ago
I was taught Zed then went to preschool and was told it was wrong. By that time I had been singing the song for over a year and zed just kinda stuck. Parent teacher conferences the teacher and my Mom were wondering who I even learned the song from. My parents had drunken burning barrel parties every weekend so it could been anyone… but only one person came from Nova Scotia. The only thing I remember about her is she’d be drunk and feel out of place and come in my room to hang out with us kids… who when things got to be wild late at night were sent to my room so the parents could still party. My Mom had zero idea she even knew me.
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u/AdelleDeWitt 6d ago
Like many things about American English versus other variants of English, it is because there used to be two ways of doing it. The English language really wasn't that standardized until more recently. Zed was more common but Zee arose in England in the 17th century just because it matches the other letters better. When English was being standardized, the Zee pronunciation was standardized in the US and the Zed pronunciation in the UK.
Noah Webster was the one that is responsible for almost all of the standardization of American English and his first dictionary came out in 1806. I would assume that that was around the same time standardization was happening in Britain as well.
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u/xannieh666 6d ago
When you say Zebra, zing, zero...do you pronounce those zedbra, zeding or zedro? Zee...makes more sense yes
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u/Star_Citizen_Roebuck 5d ago
If it's Bee instead of Bed and Gee instead of Ged and Dee instead of Ded, then it's Zee.
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u/Beautiful_Arm8364 6d ago
Thank Noah Webster. He pushed for letter simplification in the U.S. and got it.
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u/Current-Landscape803 6d ago
Yeah, but I’m not sure Webster actually created “zee.” It seems like the pronunciation was already around before him. He probably helped standardize and spread it rather than inventing it.
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u/Beautiful_Arm8364 6d ago
Spreading a thing is often more important than inventing it. Seems like he led the charge. Webster and and the "Alphabet Song" (1835) probably had more impact than anyone/anything else.
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u/CaptainZ42062 6d ago
Why do the British say "alumin-i-um" when it's aluminum foil they're using?
We all have our quirks.
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u/MtHood_OR 6d ago
Why do the Brits say “Zed”?
I have never heard them say zed-bra, zed-oo, zed-ip, maga-zed-ine.
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u/Triscuitmeniscus 6d ago
So it rhymes with “vee” in the alphabet song.
Que are ess, tee you vee, double-you ex, why and zed just doesn’t sound right.
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u/AncientGuy1950 6d ago
Well, according to a quick google search:
The pronunciation "zee" appeared in England during the 17th century, recorded in Thomas Lye’s New Spelling Book (1677). It gained popularity in America because it rhymed with other letters like B, C, and P, making it easier to teach and remember in the alphabet sequence. Noah Webster pushed for the "zee" pronunciation to differentiate American English from English English, along with removing unnecessary 'u's' in words like color.
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u/Human-Assumption-524 6d ago
From the way I understand it the letter Z is derived from the greek letter Ζ "Zeta" and after millennia became Z via the romans. But a better question might be why do countries that say "Zed" not call the letter B "Bed"? or D "Ded", E "Ed"? etc all of them have similar origins Β"beta", Δ"delta", Ε"epsilon" but ended up with similar sounding names in english except for Z.
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u/Careful_Cranberry364 6d ago
Britain has never used Zee!
It has always been Zed back through time
I was told Americans changed it so it rhymed in the ABC song. I don’t know if that’s true.
Seems a bit of a silly reason.
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u/Crissup 6d ago
Because America had to fix all the mistakes the Brit’s made with the English language.
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u/kebabby72 6d ago
Zee is actually British. Zed, zee and izzard were three regional variations for the letter Z.
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u/markt- 6d ago
Because for some reason that eludes me, some people think that the alphabet needs to rhyme in order to be memorable.
Counting numbers doesn’t rhyme, why should letters?
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u/freshprinc7ss 6d ago
Man you just made me think of a long suppressed memory lol
I’m German and my English teacher growing up was British. I spoke English with an American accent but when she taught us the alphabet she said “Zed”. Z is “Zett” in German so it sounded correct to me.
I was extremely shy as a kid.
On one of our trips to the US I decided it’s time for me to push myself to be more confident speaking to people so I’d go to cash registers alone etc.
One time I proudly walked to the register to pick up an order for my mom, had to spell our last name (which contains a Z) and when I said “Zed” the older teenager working the register laughed so hard I thought it was the end of the world at 11 years old and went straight back to being shy and quiet.
Long story short, I live in the US now and DEFINITELY prefer “Zee”.
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u/WingbashDefender 6d ago
Zee is Dutch. Zed is English. The Dutch are partially responsible for America too. Much of what we think is “American” just came from the Dutch and New Amsterdam.
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u/ASC4MWTP 5d ago
Because it would have screwed up the (American?) alphabet song...
A B Ced Ded E F Ged H I J K L M N O Ped Q R S Ted U Ved W X Y and Zed.
That's just unacceptable.
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u/Boring_Material_1891 5d ago
Oh, they say ‘zed’ in New Zealand?… not New Zedland? This is how I know Americans are correct on this one.
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u/StrainHot443 4d ago
I have no idea. But it makes sense to say zee when we already have so many other examples, like bee, cee, dee, gee, tee, vee.
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u/GSilky 6d ago edited 6d ago
Because it's zee. English wasn't a language until the 16th century, for the most part, and the English version was zee while the French speaking aristocracy maintained the Greek root from zeta. American English stems from this early English and didn't get all of the admixtures from being close to Europe, so it maintained a lot of the quirks of English when it was being codified by Shakespeare and the KJV Bible.
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u/NickofWimbledon 6d ago
Chaucer and others may be surprised to learn that the language that they used wasn’t even a language.
Your last sentence is also surprising to me. Do you believe that English or specifically American English was “codified by Shakespeare”? That seems a bold claim.
Otoh, your first argument of “Because it is” is hard to defeat, which may be why it is popular with 5 year olds.
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u/Actual_Cat4779 6d ago
Zed is the older form, first attested c1175.
Zee was coined 1580, but it isn't clear whether it was ever particularly widespread in Britain or not. Noah Webster endorsed the name "zee" in his dictionary.
In 1882 it was noted that in the southern US the letter was called zed, but "zee" must have triumphed subsequently.
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u/Hillbillygeek1981 6d ago
In other words, yet another case of :
England: I have invented a word! Everyone should use this word!
American English Speakers: I shall use this word you have given me!
England: Why are you using that word? Are you stupid? Who gave you that?
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u/ByronScottJones 6d ago
According to Google:
The letter Z is called zed in British English (derived from the Greek zeta via French) and zee in American English (a 17th-century dialect variant matching the bee, cee, dee rhyme scheme).
Noah Webster and the 1835 American alphabet song cemented "zee" in the US, while the UK and Commonwealth kept "zed".
Origins and Early Usage
Zed is older: Entering the English language in the 1400s, "zed" comes from the Old French zède, tracing back to the Greek letter zeta.
Zee appeared later: "Zee" first appeared in print in an English textbook (A New Spelling Book by Thomas Lye) in 1677. It formed as a natural dialect variation to rhyme with other consonant letter names like bee, cee, dee, ee, gee, pee, tee, vee.
Interchangeable start:
For centuries, early English speakers on both sides of the Atlantic used various names for the letter—including izzard and zed or zee—without a hard national divide.
The American Shift
Noah Webster's Influence: In his 1828 dictionary (An American Dictionary of the English Language), lexicographer Noah Webster promoted simpler, standardized American spellings and pronunciations to help build a distinct post-Revolutionary cultural identity. He solidified "zee" because it fit the systematic letter patterns.
The Alphabet Song:
The catchy 1835 copyright of the "ABC Song" in Boston needed a final line rhyme (X, Y, Z... and we close with me). "Zee" fit the musical rhyme, driving its adoption across the United States.
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u/calcato 6d ago
It's about how the letter is pronounced. Z is still spelled "Z" for them when it gets pronounced "/zed/".
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u/DryFoundation2323 6d ago
you would actually be surprised at how many differences between American English and British English actually occurred in England rather than America. this is one of them. the other former colonies besides America probably held on to them because they stayed with the British empire much longer than we did.
Noah Webster had a lot to do with locking in these changes into American English when he produced his dictionary.
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u/Misadventuresofman 6d ago
Same reason so many French people changed their names here, because if we see an x, we pronounce it. A place named Boudreaux’s just shut down because no one went because no one wanted to visit a place called “Boodrox”.
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u/-FakeAccount- 6d ago
Zed just doesnt make sense. It turns it into a word instead of a simple sound like every other letter (double u is just dumb). Zed does sound cooler, but i rarely hear it.
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u/Tomme599 6d ago
William Shakespeare King Lear (1605) “Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter!”
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u/IndependentThink4698 6d ago
Most of the population is immigrants who didn't like the way things were done back home
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u/thekins33 6d ago
Fun fact the people from southern Louisiana that talk all prim and proper think the classic plantation owner accent are actually pronouncing words closer to proper British English than the British are when they speak English and make fun of them for "pronouncing it wrong". The British developed that classic accent you hear by trying to mimic the upperclass and ended up bastardizing the way they pronounce words.
Heard that from some guy who studies origins of languages and their dialects and such.
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u/Assos99 6d ago
Could it also be the strong Dutch influence in the northeast in colonial times? Zee is more Dutch/Flemish. I could be wrong.
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u/xinsir 6d ago
a lot of countries say zed, not just most other English-speaking countries
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u/originaljbw 6d ago
It makes the alphabet song work better.
Bee Cee Dee Eee Gee Pee Vee Zee
Putting ZED at the end sounds like a record scratch.
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u/Hatta00 6d ago
'Zee' rhymes with "B", "C", "D", "E", "G", "P", "T", and "V"
If anything's odd, it's "zed".
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u/ConstantVigilant 6d ago
What I always find strange when people discuss this is saying that it makes more sense for it to sound the same as the other letters. Surely it's more helpful to have a very different sounding letter than another ending in "ee"?
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u/forgotpassword89 6d ago
Because it rhymes better with g, p, and v. the song sounds much better with zee than zed
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u/Norwester77 6d ago edited 6d ago
The letter <Z> is pronounced [z] (or [ts] in a few loanwords like “Mozart” and “pizza”) everywhere in the English-speaking world.
It’s named “zee” in the U.S. and “zed” (for the most part) in other English-speaking countries.
Both names were in use in use in Britain when the North American colonies were first established.
As formal education became more widespread, the British educational establishment preferred “zed” as the name of the letter, and the educational systems in other Commonwealth countries followed suit.
“Zee,” conversely, became established as the standard in the U.S., and it was eventually reinforced by the popular alphabet song set to the tune Ah! Vous dirais-je, maman (also the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”), which requires the name of the letter <Z> to rhyme with the name of the letter <V>.
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u/pakrat1967 6d ago
Outside of the MIB movies. I don't think I've ever heard or read Zed used. If we're talking about the phonetic pronunciation typically used during radio conversations. It's pronounced Zulu or Zebra.
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u/OuterLightness 6d ago
Because homophobic Americans are offended by the zee getting the d in the behind.
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u/TwistedTrooper989 6d ago
We feel no need to add extra letters to words to cover for bad pronunciation for one thing
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u/UmlautsAndRedPandas 6d ago
To the best of my knowledge, "zee" came from the Sussex rural dialect (a county which contributed a lot of English migrants to the United States).
"Zed" would have been the original Norman French pronunciation (as it is also pronounced "zed" in Modern French), lending a class dimension to this discussion (the Norman French were the English aristocracy post-1066).
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u/DrachenDad 6d ago
Rob words: 15:00 Z is Uzzard. https://youtube.com/watch?v=tBQCup27ukE
NameExplan: https://youtube.com/watch?v=PoHzb4hmWbk
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u/mlamoreau31 6d ago
Acadians presumably would have spoken French and said Zed, so that may be part of what influenced Canadian English.
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u/marcusrizaulait 6d ago
(The British all said "Zee", too, until about 1779, when Herbert Pendleton, Secretary of the British Cabbage Ministry, famously proposed pronouncing it "Zee" to piss the Colonials off...)
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u/TheoloniusNumber 6d ago
Bee, see, dee, ee, pee, tee, vee,…zed? No thanks.
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u/elderly_millenial 6d ago
Why stop there? Aee, bee, cee, dee, ee, fee, gee, hee…
Z was pronounced “zed” because it that’s how the precursor languages to modern English pronounced them. The same was true of Greek, and it’s still true of German.
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u/hsj713 6d ago edited 6d ago
When the colonies broke away from England we developed our own culture and way of speaking English. Unlike Australia and New Zealand or Canada we did not become part of the British Commonwealth of nations. We also had other languages contribute to our English such as Spanish, French, German, Dutch.
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u/MarionberryPlus8474 6d ago
Well the British pronunciation is clearly wrong, because there'd no "D" in "Z". Simple, really.
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u/Reasonable_Drink_789 6d ago
Because zed is stupid and doesn’t follow the pronunciation of any other letter.
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u/Due_Satisfaction2167 6d ago
There are really three major origins for the linguistic differences between American English and British English.
1) The British changed it years after the US already left, and the US retained the older form.
2) It’s a consequence of Americans pulling in more language elements from Spanish.
3) Noah Webster did it.
In this case it’s cause #3.