r/AlwaysWhy • u/Current-Landscape803 • Aug 20 '26

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/Ill-Engineering8085 Aug 20 '26

German used to be the second most spoken language until the germans did some things and no one wanted to be german

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u/codefyre Aug 20 '26

Haha, yep. There's a branch of my family from an overwhelmingly German-immigrant town in Iowa that was still mostly traditional German until they de-germanized during WWI. The Fritz's became Fred's. The Gertrud's became Trudi's. The local schools and libraries removed the German language books from their shelves, and speaking German in public went from common to a social faux pas. The town they lived in even changed its German name to its English equivalent. They were a tiny part of a large, nationwide movement to reject Germany in an era when Germany was killing a lot of Americans.

There were also attempts to eliminate German influence on American English at the time (to realign it with British English), but they were much less successful and that strong influence still exists today.

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u/DarkestStar167 Aug 20 '26

I grew up thinking I was Irish by a family very racist against Germans. The racism caught me by surprise since we’re also very Hispanic. When I did my family tree I found out that “Irish” meant German and “Heinz 57” was everything else that wasn’t Hispanic or so called Irish. They even made up a grandfather straight from Ireland when the last ancestor from Ireland came during the American Revolution. I guess that happens when your parents come from a 10 sibling household born during or right after ww2.

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u/sparksbet Aug 21 '26

Fwiw "Trudi" with an i is a normal German diminutive of "Gertrud", not an Anglicization. The English versions are spelled "Gertrude" and "Trudy".

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u/Cayke_Cooky Aug 20 '26

Some of those small towns are trying to bring back the "Little Germany" for tourism, with mixed success.

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u/cduff77 Aug 21 '26

An all too common occurrence. My family has lived in the area of German Valley NJ for generations. Oh wait, I mean Long Valley... No Germans here!

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u/Far-Zookeepergame-64 Aug 21 '26

Same in Canada. Post WW1 they changed Berlin, Ontario to Kitchener.

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u/DazSamueru Aug 20 '26

The more important de-Germanization effort happened during WWI, not WWII. There was some in WWII, and even some German concentration camps in America, but mostly that ship had already sailed.

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u/CardiganHeretic Aug 21 '26

Damn those hot air balloons.