Is it pronounced zee or zed?

English speakers in other Commonwealth countries also prefer the pronunciation zed. As zed is the British pronunciation and zee is chiefly American, zed represents one of the rare occasions in which most Canadians prefer the British to the American pronunciation.

Why is Z pronounced zee?

In most English-speaking countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Zambia, and Australia, the letter’s name is zed /zɛd/, reflecting its derivation from the Greek zeta (this dates to Latin, which borrowed X, Y, and Z from Greek, along with their names), but in American English its …

Why do Canadians say aboot?

Canadians do something called ‘Canadian Raising’, meaning that they pronounce some two-part vowels (known as dipthongs) with a higher part of their mouths than people from other English-speaking regions – this is what causes the ‘ou’ sounds in words like ‘out’ and ‘about’ to be pronounced something like ‘oot’ and ‘ …

Why do English say Zed?

The British and others pronounce “z”, “zed”, owing to the origin of the letter “z”, the Greek letter “Zeta”. This gave rise to the Old French “zede”, which resulted in the English “zed” around the 15th century.

Why do British add an R?

Because of the tendency to pronounce an “r” when it occurs between vowel sounds, many of these same speakers go a step more and add an “r” where it doesn’t belong, once again between two vowel sounds.

Why do New Yorkers pronounce a as ER?

Traditional New York accents tend to be non-rhotic, i.e. they only pronounce an r if it comes right before a vowel sound. It should be added that most present-day New York accents are rhotic, like most accents in North America, i.e. they pronounce all r’s.

Why do New Yorkers say SAWR?

1 Answer. The people from New York who say sawr only say it if the following word starts with a vowel or is him, his, her (in which case the ‘h’ gets dropped).