POLL: The Pronunciation of the letter "Z"

Remove all ads!

Soo Many Eurpoens here ahh! Where are all my Fellow Americans. Well My question is did anyone grab a dictionary? o Wait why take that effort its ZEE! You Brits Got your Behind handed to you in the Revolutionary war. And Wait Whats that who needed Help In the WW from the scary germans?Heh Thats a whole other topic. And one that is not needed =) We all know us Americans are right =). And Allso Drop your U's! Colours/Armour is just annoying why would you want to make words longer and harder to spell?? If You ask Me. The English Made the Language, but The Americans Prefected it.

 

The Americans prefected the English language. What irony.

[ January 24, 2003, 02:20: Message edited by: C'Jakob ]

 

Depends when. In 16th century The Great Vowel Shift was ordered by authorities and introduced by Dutch people on the basis of German language It was not that entirely succesful however. Conservative people speak a very different English to the one you may hear on streets (not only vowels concerned). Sometimes it's even different to the pronunciation given by the most conservative dictionaries...

Most of them for example give /'o:fn/ or /'afn/ for the word 'often' while the originally correct one is /'oftn/ or even /'often/. In other words where most commonly the 't' is silent, the issue happens less often. But you still could hear some weak 't' in 'castle', 'listening' etc. The famous English 'r' is also less 'English' among traditionalists.

Another example is /eu/. As far as I know even the most modern descriptive dictionaries (Vade retro! Ego te exorciso! Apage, apage! Ne hominem tangas! ) still use the phonetic symbol /eu/ even though they suggest a different pronunciation of the symbol (just like 'o'+'u', the omega one in phonetic script).

 

reepnorp,

Oh, I see, if you change the pronunciation of everything, then it's okay.

We call it a new language? I thought we still called it "English".
Mock away my foolish friend, mock away.

[ January 24, 2003, 17:15: Message edited by: Jack Funk ]

 

Debating "zee" versus "zed" is foolish - all that "Z" is is a signifier for a SOUND (actually, the names "Zee" and "Zed" are signifiers for the signifier "Z" - say that rapidly seven times!)

To get REALLY technical, what you read as "Z" can be read in a couple different ways - as a "voiced palatal fricative" or as a "voiced alveolar fricative", to be exact.

Anyways, debating the superiority of American English or The Queen's English, or even Japanese English and South American English (yes, there are such things) is just an unproductive waste of time - languages grow, languages change, and the way that a word is pronounced (or even spelled) is not something to base the superiority of a culture on. English, like any other language, started out as a "pidgin" (a mixture of different languages put together by forced conditions) and is now a "creole" (a pidgin that has gained status as someone's native language). That is really all it comes down to - that English, Spanish, and many other languages in the world, all started out sounding like gibberish, and really are not much more than that now.

It is all just sound.

Besides, does the signifier of a signifier really change the nature of the signified?

 

Jack, Amon-Ra said:

So it's not me saying you speak a language other than english, he did.

 

I didn't realize that Amon-Ra spoke for all of America (as you said "you Americans"). I probably called in sick that day. Too many cheese burgers.
You conveniently ignored the first part of my response which addresses your attempt to excuse the fact that English is derived from other languages. You don't want to discuss it, because then you can't make this about how Americans ruined English.
I think this whole discussion is silly. So I will continue to make cultural references (even though it seems most people missed it) and call you out.
But just for fun.

 

Come on people, lighten up. So you can pronounce Z "Zed" or "Zee". Vote. Put in your two cents. Enough. How did this turn into "Our English is better than Yours"? Just settle your differences in a new topic, because I believe this is getting off-topic.

Besides, all this debating is superfluous. Everybody knows the Malaysians invented English.

/me ducks from the incoming pelts of to-MAH-toes and po-TAY-toes.

[ January 25, 2003, 03:38: Message edited by: Rhythm ]

 

Zed

 

IIRC there are more Americans than Brits on these boards so they are most likely to win this argument

But it's just a matter of accents, improvisation and inevitable change

[ January 25, 2003, 11:31: Message edited by: 8people ]

 

@8people: multitude has nothing to do with winning in a discussion They may at best win the vote. As if vote mattered in grammar...
Besides, those Yankees commit far more outrageous crimes against the language every single day if not hour or minute

 

Also, many other countries may decide to support Britain in this nost serious matter

 

"And Wait Whats that who needed Help In the WW from the scary germans?Heh Thats a whole other topic. And one that is not needed =)"

There was indeed a major conflict in the early 1940's. There all relation to real events ends. America saves the world again. Woo-hoo. However America did not, I'm afraid, "save the world again". Despite what happens in films, it never has. Germany lost WWII mainly because of the war it was fighting on its eastern front. No one country among the allies could be said to have saved the world, but the closest one to having that accolade s the Soviet Union.

I suggest you read some of the history relating to the capture of the enigma machine - you will see that America did not, in fact, have any involvement in that event at all.

Neither did it have any involvement with the events portrayed in that wonderfully allegorical film U-571(allegorical since the Americans represented the British).

Anyway, thats far too serious for this lighthearted topic and it made me come across as a USA hater, which Im not since I actually really like the country and have quite alot of friends there- Anyway to return to the topic of "How to pronouce 'Z'"-

To the citizens of the United States of America,
In the light of your failure to speak and spell the English language in the correct way and thus to govern yourselves properly, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy.

Your new prime minister (The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections.
Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are reintroduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then lookup "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary". Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed".

2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf.

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American "football". There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would-be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American" football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full Kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2005.

7. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if they give you any merde. The 98.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves lucky. The Russians have never been the bad guys. "Merde" is French for "****".

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 8th will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive Day".

9. All American cars are hereby banned. It is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

10. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

 

I'm willing to call a truce with America. Anyone with me?

 

Belgium is with the Zed people.

 

"You should declare war on Quebec"

WHAT THE HELL?!!!! why! (Actualy France I don't care...) QUÉBEC is the only "area" in North America that hasn't copy the American Culture you may believe what you want but the rest of Canada HAS ben assimilated by the American culture, language, general behave... while Québec kept their own and will always keep their culture!
An English canadian can live well in Québec since he can get almost everything in English while a French Canadian may have a very hard time outside Québec since No province or territory has french services... The fact is that English Canadian LOATH A LOT MORE *us* than we loath them... anyway When I write and talk English I try too keep the British way... My simple "boycott" of the rest of the North America... Also as you have say "merde" is the french for (**&*&(&?(*&?*&)
Another Thing only 18% of the AMERICAN Know the name of the Canadian Prime Minister... and they call us "their ally" what a shame...
From what I see this post should be move to Alley of dangerous angle...

 

Ulicus, your Eurocentric drivel is equivalent to that which you criticize about Americans.

A few points- without the U.S. Merchant Marines, the eastern front would have been far worse off. The United States delivered some 15,000 tanks to the Soviet Union during WWII, in comparison to the 10,000 or so the Soviet Union had at the onset of Operation Barbarossa. This is not to mention the crucial food deliveries to an army line that was more or less starving in the dead of winter. I do not criticize the spirit with which the men of Russia fought, but their fight would have been entirely hopeless if not properly supplied. It is not coincidence that the Battle of Stalingrad was preceeded by several hefty supply deliveries from the United States, mostly munitions and tanks. Additionally, the United States battled Germany's greatest Axis ally, Japan, almost single-handedly.

If there is no such thing as U.S. English, why is there an Australian English? Because they are a former colony of England? Hrm... We can and do have our own pronunciation for words. You don't like ours, we don't like yours. But they are distinct, no one is right or wrong, just different.

On a final note, England did not grant America freedom, America beat it out of them with blood and bullets.

 

Is there a poll with more replies than this? If so, point me to it!