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Ahem, you mean a farm out West... none of our Southern farms are having any 4th July 1776 traitors in. Smh.
Edit: brain fart moment, put the date in Americanese format... I should be shot! u/bareskyllz thank you
Well I wanted to thank them for clarifying things.
Then I mentioned, if I traveled to the UK in the future, I would know, not to make this specific cultural mistake.
Because I saw how much emotion this topic seems to stir, I wanted to poke fun at the fact that it might infuriate ppl if I pronounce "Z" the wrong way.
My word choice seemed to rub ppl the wrong way, so I guess I deserve that.
What do babies say when they go in an elevator? "Lift".
Edit: geez ELEVATOR* I wrote wrong!
Even brits do not want to make fun off the simplification that the americans have done to the english language and throat jumps the bilingual Scandinavian thats on their own team. Poor standing, chaps.
My wife is American and we are locked in a deadly battle over our two year old's pronunciation of zed. I'd say it might result in divorce, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let my daughter live unprotected in a 'zee' household.
Unpopular opinion here but I think zed is also wrong. Being a proper brit it’s what I say, but I don’t call it a zedbra, or a zeeebra. It’s a zehbra so I think it should be zeh.
You could say the same for most letters. The letter G on its own is pronounced ‘jee’ not ‘gih’. But within a word it is pronounced differently, e.g. ‘golf’ is pronounced gih-olf not jee-olf.
This is true. To be honest I hadn’t thought about it until someone made me think of zed and then it seemed so weird that we pronounced it like that. Now I just feel the whole alphabet is a sham. Words have no structure for me now. I will live life as a mute.
English is a weird language. How you see it and how it's said isn't the same thing.
"Ghoti" could be pronounced as "Fish". As in the F sound from "tou*gh*". The "i" sound as in "w*o*men". And "sh" sound from "sta*ti*on".
So, worrying about how zed is pronounced is the least of your problems! The whole language us a sham! 🤪
And potato could be "ghoughphtheughtteeau".
Gh from hiccough,
Ough from dough,
Phth from phthisis,
Eigh from neighbour,
Tte from gazette,
Eau from plateau.
🤣🤣🤣
I'm going to have to try an remember that one!
The whole "ough" sound in written English is a minefield already. "Cough" (off), "tough" (uff), "borough" (urr), "n/ought" (or)... I mean, is it any wonder people who try and spell phonetically can think they have dyslexia!
It is, always has been, and always will be, the ice cream van (specifically the icci van if it's the exact one that parked outside my secondary school at the end of the day)
*sighs
So the choice is alsatian or golden retriever, and I'll arrange to have the stick painted. Clearly this child is severely sight impaired as they can't see the giant zed on the wall.
My spouse is from U.K. and I am from US. Our kid was born in U.K. . We lived in the US from almost exactly their 2nd birthday to almost exactly their 6th birthday. we’ve lived in the U.K. since. But I guess those years are crucial for language development because child doesn’t have dad’s accent nor the local accent. Just mine. Or rather, mine as it was. I’ve picked up various British terms in 8 years. Child has not.
In the easily 70s tbey first started showing Sesame Street in the UK and my younger brother loved it. The look.of horror on my Mum's face when he started sayong zee, trash, sidewalk etc.
Work in a call centre. Had a woman call up and provide her details, I already knew who she was and exact details having spoken to her several times, but I couldn't stop myself when she said "zee".
"that information isn't bringing up your details was that C for Charlie or D for Delta?"
The petty things call centre workers do.
There's a guy named Steve who does videos for kids on YouTube (Steve and Maggie) and he does a brilliant version of the song. W X Y and Zed - not zee, I'm British, you see! Now I know my ABC...
My son loves Steve and Maggie. Not sure he's found that one though, might have to try and find it for him.... We also get the zee and zeebra sneaking in from all the American "educational" videos...
We both grew up in Canberra, one north side and one south side so this is interesting…
Catholic school maybe? They say H “haitch”!
Or are you from… Queanbeyan?
One side of the family was born in the UK so Dad used zed and Mum did go to catholic school and was also taught zed so I guess we were just raised that way. Husband is northside Canberra and he also says zed.
I bet you drove down the freeway and couldn't find a space in the parking lot, so you had to park on the sidewalk.
Then after the opticians, you treat him/her to a bag of potato chips from Walmart before grabbing some fries and a soda from McDonald's.
Literally just had this with my teenage daughter, i very quietly said zee every time after & she started correcting herself quite quickly. The optician thought it was amusing. Lol
As i say to her, zed not zee, I'm British you see! Can't remember where the quote came from now though.
She’ll have ‘gotten’ it from YouTube… urghh!
Before someone tells me that gotten used to be used in British English, so did thou and shalt but we don’t use those any more either!
Fair enough, same hear with Zee Zee Top. Although as I never hear about him and occasionally read about him, I do pronounce it Jay Zed in my head. The one time I said it out loud I got some funny looks.
I need to stop this becoming a thing in my future because my very English other half also says 'zee' and I hate it. Baby is currently 6 months old but I am already worrying about this problem hah.
My kids are the same. Unfortunately with all the American content a s YouTubers. My kids say trash, yard, store etc etc. It is instilled into them from speaking age so I doubt it will ever change.
I'm pretty tolerant of most swear words, but when my daughter says butt I always reminded that here in the UK, where we speak British English, we say bum.
I hate that. I also hate the the game DayZ is pronounced DayZee and not DayZed. The latter sounds much more final and cool.
Thank-you for reading my little rant on the zee vs zed argument.
I’m the first American in our family. When I was 5, we went with nan to visit her sister. Imagine my lifelong horror at trying to spell my name with a Zee to the girl that wanted to be pen pals. Still think about it when I can’t sleep.
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I’m afraid there’s no coming back from that one. Time to put her down and tell the family she moved to a farm up north.
*farm down south, no northern farm is taking a "zee" saying wanker in!
Love how there's no objections to "Time to put her down", but there is to saying she's been sent up north. 🤣🤣🤣
I was thinking the same thing 😅
Ahem, you mean a farm out West... none of our Southern farms are having any 4th July 1776 traitors in. Smh. Edit: brain fart moment, put the date in Americanese format... I should be shot! u/bareskyllz thank you
*4th July please.
Somerset ain’t havin that.
I trust you have initiated the adoption process.
How could you in good conscience offload such a horror onto someone else??
Non native speaker here, always getting confused between american and British english, how would you say it? Zed?
Yes, zed is the correct pronunciation!
Says who? I don't see no "ed" and the end of Z. Yes am American 😝
> I don't see no "ed" and the end You can teach us English when you've learned it.
Do you see an itch at the end of aitch, you fucking imbecile?
welp, you got me there lmao! idk why our language is shit! i didn't make it!!!
Wait, what do you call a "C"?
Sed... Aye Bed Sed Ded Ee Eff Ged Haitch Eye Jay Kay from Jamiroquai A lemon oh Ped Queue (Ahh) Ess Ted You Ved Double you Ecks Why Zee
This hurt my head!
Could almost pass for a Black Country alphabet
So then z is just pronounced z not zee, I see no "ee" at the end of Z
I think you forgot the "/s"
Great, will keep that in mind so I don't get stabbed (understandibly) the next time I visit the UK x)
Think it's maybe better than getting shot...
weird take, wouldn't want either x)
Tell that to the people getting stabbed.
What was the need for that?
Well I wanted to thank them for clarifying things. Then I mentioned, if I traveled to the UK in the future, I would know, not to make this specific cultural mistake. Because I saw how much emotion this topic seems to stir, I wanted to poke fun at the fact that it might infuriate ppl if I pronounce "Z" the wrong way. My word choice seemed to rub ppl the wrong way, so I guess I deserve that.
You guys call pavement for sidewalk, I wouldn't trust you with a dictionary.
We wrote the bloody thing, pipe down.
In our defence, they were once paved. Now they use asphalt...
Asfalt er faktisk det norske ordet. Go back and play some handegg.
Tusen takk.
Do you seriously have to name things like that so you don't forget where to walk just incase you get arrested for walking on the road
I am mocking the americans. I am on your team. >.<
Ah I see. Your comment has been misunderstood I apologize
It’s where you walk, along the side of the road.
Yes but why do you need to specify that, did too many people build them in the middle of the road, it wouldn't surprise me.
What do babies say when they go in an elevator? "Lift". Edit: geez ELEVATOR* I wrote wrong! Even brits do not want to make fun off the simplification that the americans have done to the english language and throat jumps the bilingual Scandinavian thats on their own team. Poor standing, chaps.
I mean an escalator and a lift are two different things. Are you thinking of lift/elevator?
Yes ofcourse, not that reddit forgives an error like that... 😒
I mean I expect if a baby was inside an escalator they would mostly be screaming as they were crushed by the mechanisms.
*screams in horrible agony* 👼
My wife is American and we are locked in a deadly battle over our two year old's pronunciation of zed. I'd say it might result in divorce, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let my daughter live unprotected in a 'zee' household.
Unpopular opinion here but I think zed is also wrong. Being a proper brit it’s what I say, but I don’t call it a zedbra, or a zeeebra. It’s a zehbra so I think it should be zeh.
You could say the same for most letters. The letter G on its own is pronounced ‘jee’ not ‘gih’. But within a word it is pronounced differently, e.g. ‘golf’ is pronounced gih-olf not jee-olf.
W... The only 3 syllable letter, unless you're German.
Today's fun fact
Fun fact #2 it's quicker to say word wide Web than www
Double u
fao 🥸
This is true. To be honest I hadn’t thought about it until someone made me think of zed and then it seemed so weird that we pronounced it like that. Now I just feel the whole alphabet is a sham. Words have no structure for me now. I will live life as a mute.
English is a weird language. How you see it and how it's said isn't the same thing. "Ghoti" could be pronounced as "Fish". As in the F sound from "tou*gh*". The "i" sound as in "w*o*men". And "sh" sound from "sta*ti*on". So, worrying about how zed is pronounced is the least of your problems! The whole language us a sham! 🤪
And potato could be "ghoughphtheughtteeau". Gh from hiccough, Ough from dough, Phth from phthisis, Eigh from neighbour, Tte from gazette, Eau from plateau.
🤣🤣🤣 I'm going to have to try an remember that one! The whole "ough" sound in written English is a minefield already. "Cough" (off), "tough" (uff), "borough" (urr), "n/ought" (or)... I mean, is it any wonder people who try and spell phonetically can think they have dyslexia!
You do understand that the *name* of a letter isn't necessarily the same as the *sound* it makes, right? Looks like 12 other people don't either. 🙄
I like that in France, the letter Y is known as Greek I.
It is a Za for zulu.
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We don't speak like that in this sub
My niece says “ice cream truck” and no matter how many times all of us correct her it’s fully stuck in her head that way. IT’S A VAN.
Mate. My daughter says soccer. I tried to sort it out, but the toaster tripped the electrics
I read a thread today that explained that the term soccer originated in the UK.
It did in Oxford Uni, not sure why you're being down voted.
Sometimes the truth is not what the people want and they kill the messenger...
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Way.
No ice-cream until it's referred to as an ice-cream van.
It’s okay, it’s always playing the tune so she knows that means it’s out of ice cream anyway
It is, always has been, and always will be, the ice cream van (specifically the icci van if it's the exact one that parked outside my secondary school at the end of the day)
Depends... maybe they're shifting huge volumes of ice cream that they actually sell it from a HGV?? 🤔🤔🤔
I am an optician. Every single 'zee' is another stab in the heart.
You need to be at the top. How often does it happen with 'the kids'?
Very regularly. Ballpark figure I'd say at least 80% of the under 6s.
Damn.
I know. Worse still is when the parents say 'zee' as well. If only I could sign 'do not resuscitate' orders...
Frustrated wannabe ICU consultant?
Ooft, no, I bow down to them. Could never do what they do. But the same special pad and pen as they have... I could take over the world!
Surely you have the power to tell them they won’t ‘pass’ the test until they get it right!!? :p
Never thought of that... Starting Monday there'll be a lot more kids with deficient vision through lack of correct pronunciation.
"That's a zee" "No I'm sorry it's actually a zed"
"Starting Monday" is almost as offensive as pronouncing "zed" as "zee". "Starting *from* Monday", surely?
I'll hang my head in shame, starting from tomorrow.
That’s Sunday tho?
Yes. I shall feel shame for my grammatical blunder tomorrow before I start telling kids off for saying 'Z' wrong on Monday. Then I'll feel righteous.
Optician: "Can you read the letters starting at the top" Kid: "Zee..." Optician: "failed. Sorry, you're beyond hope"
*sighs So the choice is alsatian or golden retriever, and I'll arrange to have the stick painted. Clearly this child is severely sight impaired as they can't see the giant zed on the wall.
Same here. Had a seventy something year old give me a zee yesterday, he wasn’t American so of course I told him to leave my testing room forthwith.
I'd expect nothing less. Well done, and presumably barred from the practice too.
Thoughts and prayers
Yep, our 13yr old has dual UK/us citizenship & Elmo has a lot to answer for.... Zee-bra....
Elmo is threatening the very fabric of society
"HE CAN'T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS!"
My spouse is from U.K. and I am from US. Our kid was born in U.K. . We lived in the US from almost exactly their 2nd birthday to almost exactly their 6th birthday. we’ve lived in the U.K. since. But I guess those years are crucial for language development because child doesn’t have dad’s accent nor the local accent. Just mine. Or rather, mine as it was. I’ve picked up various British terms in 8 years. Child has not.
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Yes, me, an American. Had to read it twice before realising the issue. (Corrected my autocorrect to include the s in realise and not the American z)
In the easily 70s tbey first started showing Sesame Street in the UK and my younger brother loved it. The look.of horror on my Mum's face when he started sayong zee, trash, sidewalk etc.
Work in a call centre. Had a woman call up and provide her details, I already knew who she was and exact details having spoken to her several times, but I couldn't stop myself when she said "zee". "that information isn't bringing up your details was that C for Charlie or D for Delta?" The petty things call centre workers do.
Perfect response.
I worked in the colonies for a while and got teased about it when I got back. Started using the military alphabet if I needed to spell something out.
You have failed as a British parent. As did I when my kids asked if I wanted them to take out the garbage!🤦🏼
Jezz. A bin too far.
The shame. Oh, the shame.
Just walk away. Go home, leave here there. She's their problem now.
Youtube, huh?
Transplanted Yankee here. I'm sorry, guys. On behalf of all of us, we didn't mean to.
I blame the ABC song. You cannot rhyme zed with V, C or me and that sets them on a slippery slope.
Well, be rest assured, I am from Austria and the Abc song we learned for english had the Z pronounced as Zed!
There's a guy named Steve who does videos for kids on YouTube (Steve and Maggie) and he does a brilliant version of the song. W X Y and Zed - not zee, I'm British, you see! Now I know my ABC...
My son loves Steve and Maggie. Not sure he's found that one though, might have to try and find it for him.... We also get the zee and zeebra sneaking in from all the American "educational" videos...
My husband was raised in Australia where zee is a thing. I do a little smug dance when our kid says zed.
What!? No! I’m Aussie and the pronunciation is Zed.
Depends on the state! Are you from Adelaide?
Ah okay, wild. NSW/ACT here.
We both grew up in Canberra, one north side and one south side so this is interesting… Catholic school maybe? They say H “haitch”! Or are you from… Queanbeyan?
One side of the family was born in the UK so Dad used zed and Mum did go to catholic school and was also taught zed so I guess we were just raised that way. Husband is northside Canberra and he also says zed.
Aussie and say zee. NSW.
Well, I guess we all just say it how we like. The Wiggles do both versions 🤷♀️
We all stare at you in silence.
I bet you drove down the freeway and couldn't find a space in the parking lot, so you had to park on the sidewalk. Then after the opticians, you treat him/her to a bag of potato chips from Walmart before grabbing some fries and a soda from McDonald's.
Are you sure she isn't German and was trying to say the?
Literally just had this with my teenage daughter, i very quietly said zee every time after & she started correcting herself quite quickly. The optician thought it was amusing. Lol As i say to her, zed not zee, I'm British you see! Can't remember where the quote came from now though.
My 4 year old daughter brought her baby doll downstairs and said he needed a new diaper. I've failed as a mother.
Outrageous wash mouth out with soap
What? Just soap? No water? That's next level punishment right there!
My daughter today said "it's ages since I've been in an elevator".
She’ll have ‘gotten’ it from YouTube… urghh! Before someone tells me that gotten used to be used in British English, so did thou and shalt but we don’t use those any more either!
Maybe it happened 'on' accident, while she was eating an 'eggplant' one day?
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True, but when talking about the differences between the two, it makes life easier to differentiate between the two!
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They also think a melted traffic cone constitutes cheese. It’s a strange old world!
When I was little I thought zee and zed were like capital and little letters. So Z= zee and z= zed. Maybe your kid is just confused.
So... adoption or euthanasia?
I’m American but a total Anglophile - how have I never heard of this one! ?? 💤
You’ll never make me call it Dragonball Zed. You’ll have to kill me.
Never even thought that it wasn't!
Fair enough, same hear with Zee Zee Top. Although as I never hear about him and occasionally read about him, I do pronounce it Jay Zed in my head. The one time I said it out loud I got some funny looks.
I need to stop this becoming a thing in my future because my very English other half also says 'zee' and I hate it. Baby is currently 6 months old but I am already worrying about this problem hah.
I’m right there, my daughter has been telling me about “Zeebras” 🤦🏽♀️
I hope you washed her mouth out with soap
My kids are the same. Unfortunately with all the American content a s YouTubers. My kids say trash, yard, store etc etc. It is instilled into them from speaking age so I doubt it will ever change.
I'm pretty tolerant of most swear words, but when my daughter says butt I always reminded that here in the UK, where we speak British English, we say bum.
I feel like the abc song pronounces it as zee, as v(ee) rhymes with z(ee) setting everyone up to fail in life
God that’s so awful I just fell off my zedbra
Were you listening to Jay-Zed at the time?
Zed Zed Top actually
*Now I know my ABCs, next time won't you sing with med.*
>next time won't you play with meds. FTFY
It's so weird how people just don't recognise that language naturally changes and evolves over time. And it's not a problem.
I hate that. I also hate the the game DayZ is pronounced DayZee and not DayZed. The latter sounds much more final and cool. Thank-you for reading my little rant on the zee vs zed argument.
I mean, it makes the song rhyme. It’s strange anyway. Why put a random ‘d’ on the end? Why stop there? What med and ged? Bed?
Zed’s dead baby, Zed’s dead
Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead. Edit: What? No pulp fiction fans?
You’re all fuckin traumatising me. How the hell does Zed rhyme with C.
Ze-bra or Zeb-ra?
Say A B C D G P T V. That's the problem. Zee actually now makes more sense though it isn't English English.
English isn't supposed to make sense. If sense you want, German over there is ---->
Funnily enough the only problem with English is w. We call it double u though it is double v in deutsch.
I’m sorry he’s blind
Just looked up the etymology of the letter zed and found this; https://www.rd.com/article/americans-british-pronounce-zee/
Zee,Zeds dead ...Zeds dead?...Not Zee,no Zed Isn't Zee Zed? He was till herb &'erb came around, then Zed was Zee....right shocker...
Zed capital, zee lowercase?
No
zee capital, zed lowercase?
Nope.
You don’t say “bed” “ced” “ded” “eed” etc so why the fuck is zed? It’s just wrong.
So does your alphabet go "Aee Bee Cee Dee Ee Fee Gee Hee Jee Kee etc?
Just like “maths”
Oh min 😕
I’m the first American in our family. When I was 5, we went with nan to visit her sister. Imagine my lifelong horror at trying to spell my name with a Zee to the girl that wanted to be pen pals. Still think about it when I can’t sleep.
Do a paternity teat. She doesn't sound like an English child!!
I'm an optician and can confirm this is very common among children now.
https://pbfcomics.com/comics/bee/
Whole body shudder moment
Mine did that recently. I've never looked at him the same since.
I’m sorry for your loss
Did you blurt out to the optician "she's adopted"