Zee versus zed

[Ohwhatfuckeryitistoride]

This week I've been running visual acuity tests for year 7s. I soon noticed that about 80% of them say zee instead of zed. Now I know language changes etc, it's a mix of us influences and maybe learning phonics in primary, but it made me feel unaccountably sad.
Do your kids say zed or zee?

Me too! It never occurred to me to say zee.

Not to me. I'm American and we pronounce it A-mah-zahn, emphasis on the first syllable.

Both "rowt" and "root" are used in the US. The difference is regional.

A-mah-zahn is also how I would read A-ma-ZARN. What is the difference between the two? 😄

Bush never said that. Check Snopes.

We don't put the "r" sound in it. It is A-ma- zahn. Ah, like a doctor checking your through with a tongue depressor. No "r" at all.

What’s wrong with language evolving?

Honestly, if you were designing how to say the alphabet “from scratch” it probably would be “zee” for Z and it wouldn’t be “aitch” for H - maybe “hay” or similar by parallel with J and K.

I guess if we went from scratch we'd all be using the phonic sounds

True… I just think those two letters, plus W, are the furthest from the actual phonic sound!

DS2 is 22. He says Zee. I have pointed out many times that UK Z is Zed. He just stares at me and says Zee again. I have decided it really doesn't matter. Language changes and this is a change that seems to be happening naturally. No problem.We all know what Zee means. I now try to be uppity about linguistic changes only when the meaning gets obscured.

This is so interesting as I saw a TikTok recently where someone was comparing general British vs general American accents. One of the things they spoke about was the pronunciation of “r”. They said that Americans typically pronounce it clearly (e.g “wort-err”) whereas Brits don’t (“wart-ah”). I think “a-ma-zahn” vs “zarn” is an example of that because they both sound the same to my London accent!

Fucking YouTube generation.

pisses me off the Americanisation of the U.K.

mine now correct others for saying candy

Mine 3 DC say zee (all at secondary school now). My youngest uses a lot of American pronunciations.

Starting to use AE words because you hear them a lot on- line instead of using the BE words you've grown up with is not language evolving.

It's not improving anything. Reducing the number of synonyms/versions/dialects in a language is not something we should encourage or think of as a positive.

Why?

IMO, it is language evolving, just as it evolved and blended with other different innovations such as the printing press, the railway, air travel etc. Then movies/films and TV, long before “online” living. SMS speak from when text messages had character limits.

The phrase “jumped the shark”, say, is based on Happy Days, and I think it’s a great addition to the lexicon.

YMMV, and clearly does.

What did you say instead of movie?

@GretchenWienersHair not putting an r sound in a word is more an English thing than a British one.

Eg an English person would say caht for cart and cah for car wheras in Scotland we'd pronounce the words exactly as they're written, with the r sound.

Hope that makes sense!

Film presumably? It’s most definitely film and not movie.

This Americanisation of our English language just stresses me out.

I need to step outside and have a fag.

You can bum a fag from me.

Here we have another example of that non rhotic R getting smack dab in the way of clarity.

To most speakers and readers of English, a wart is a nasty fungal thingy you can get on your foot.

You've been bamboozled by the non rhotic R.

Americans do say erb instead of herb...

In American English, a torch is more of a tiki torch - an actual flame on a stick, as in Edinburgh's Hogmanay celebration featuring a torchlight procession.

A flashlight is a battery operated portable light.