Why do Brits Hate the Letter 'Z?'

[exchemist]

But don't Americans say "val-ay" for valet, and "urb" for herb? Maybe it's American that's closer to French.
A Celtic speaking island invaded by Germanic tribes, then Scandanavians, then French.
For several centuries French was de rigueur in Polite English society.

Well we say val-lay too, you know. Norman French is certainly the source of a lot of these words in English - very little came direct from Latin, that's for sure. And in French they use S where Americans would use Z. I read that the Americans once went through a process of rationalising their spelling, to get rid of the more egregious irregularities, and that is where things like the American "color" and "honor" came from, and where doughnut lost its middle - American doughnuts have holes in the middle to this very day! Was the replacement of S by Z part of that spelling rationalisation, do you think?

 

[exchemist]

I've only learned fairly recently that they pronounce 'z' as "zed" instead of "zee". I was told by a brit that their way was correct because it originates from zeta, but then shouldn't 'b' be "bed" stead of "bee" because of beta?

It is Zed in French. Ask them.

 

[Subduction Zone]

And if course the most over powering argument for "zee":

 

[Estro Felino]

American English, otherwise, is quite proper and conservative; none of this newfangled Brit-speak like "got" when grammar calls for gotten or "Autumn" for Fall.
Heck, it seems like most Brits these days can't even distinguish between wrath and wroth.

LoL.... ..what I meant is that words like realize, idealize, have the Z like their equivalents in Italian...realizzare, idealizzare

We have so many double Zs...as you noticed in pizza, our culinary symbol...
But also pazzo, pizzo, pozza, pezzo, pezza, pozzo etc

 

[ChristineM]

As I was typing a response to my favorite Brit on the forum in another thread, I typed the word 'paralyzed' and immediately thought, "Americans use letter 'z' like it's going out of style, but for Brits, it's all but a wasted letter."

Then I thought, should I change it to 'paralysed?' But I figured she already read the post and when she came across the word, rolled her eyes, and thought, "Those crasy Americans!"

So why do Brits hate the letter 'z?'

And why do they like the letter 'u' so much?

I guess mostly accent, brits use 's', americans (who forgot to take a dictionary with them) substituted with "z'.

Same with 'u' it is sounded so the different sound between 'colour' and 'color' immediately give away an American on tour.

As to hate?? Nah, there is zero truth in that, now its sleepy time and i till throw out a few zzzzzzz's

 

[Estro Felino]

I guess mostly accent, brits use 's', americans (who forgot to take a dictionary with them) substituted with "z'.

Same with 'u' it is sounded so the different sound between 'colour' and 'color' immediately give away an American on tour.

As to hate?? Nah, there is zero truth in that, now its sleepy time and i till throw out a few zzzzzzz's

Center, centre
Theater, theatre also

 

[ChristineM]

Center, centre
Theater, theatre also

And many more, i have great difficulty deciding if i have spelt a word wrong now when i may have the american and british spelling confused.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I guess mostly accent, brits use 's', americans (who forgot to take a dictionary with them) substituted with "z'.

Same with 'u' it is sounded so the different sound between 'colour' and 'color' immediately give away an American on tour.

As to hate?? Nah, there is zero truth in that, now its sleepy time and i till throw out a few zzzzzzz's

Nah, it was not the lack of a u, you merely heard the letter r at the end being pronounced correcrly

 

[ChristineM]

Nah, it was not the lack of a u, you merely heard the letter r at the end being pronounced correcrly

Correcrly??? Gotya ;-)

 

[Subduction Zone]

Correcrly??? Gotya ;-)

Sorry, tablet typo. Fat fingers hit the wrong spots on the virtual keyboard.

And that coupled with the world's worst autocorrect and you can see why my tablet is lucky it does not fly across the room at times.

 

[ChristineM]

Sorry, tablet typo. Fat fingers hit the wrong spots on the virtual keyboard.

And that coupled with the world's worst autocorrect and you can see why my tablet is lucky it does not fly across the room at times.

'tiz strange, i have real problems sorting out letters but when they are mixed up it often hits me right between the eyes.

And inteligent auto correct must be one of the most misused oxymorons ever. I eventually turned mine off because it was worse than me.
I still have suggestions turned on but its it to me to unintelligently nake any changes

 

[Subduction Zone]

'tiz strange, i have real problems sorting out letters but when they are mixed up it often hits me right between the eyes.

And inteligent auto correct must be one of the most misused oxymorons ever. I eventually turned mine off because it was worse than me.
I still have suggestions turned on but its it to me to unintelligently nake any changes

I have a PC with neither auto correct nor suggestions. I get along just fine. My tablet is sneaky, most of the mistakes that I make I catch right as I hit the space bar, but the auto correct fixes them. Then the second that I am not paying close attention autowrong kicks in. It takes a perfectly good word and swaps it out for the wrong one, and worse yet it is not consistent in doing so. Also for some strange reason it always thinks that the first letter in the first word of a new paragraph should be lower case. Who programmed that glitch into the system?

 

[oldbadger]

I do get a kick listening to a Brit say aluminium. The first time I hear it was on an episode of Wheeler Dealers.

But in looking at the spelling, I'm pretty sure the Americans are the ones mispronouncing it.

Go on....... say 'Worcestershire Sauce'.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Go on....... say 'Worcestershire Sauce'.

Just ignore the British spelling and say "wusstershir" sauce.

I had a British employee that I drove nuts. I could borrow pronounce English towns the way that they were spelled and the way that locals pronounced them. I was lucky that she did not test me on Welsh villages, but then I have a sneaking suspicion that other Brits cannot pronounce those either.

 

[Estro Felino]

Go on....... say 'Worcestershire Sauce'.

I had a ...erm...affair with a British guy living in Rome...
I know how to pronoununce Worcestershire...
Something like voo- stah- shah

 

[ChristineM]

I have a PC with neither auto correct nor suggestions. I get along just fine. My tablet is sneaky, most of the mistakes that I make I catch right as I hit the space bar, but the auto correct fixes them. Then the second that I am not paying close attention autowrong kicks in. It takes a perfectly good word and swaps it out for the wrong one, and worse yet it is not consistent in doing so. Also for some strange reason it always thinks that the first letter in the first word of a new paragraph should be lower case. Who programmed that glitch into the system?

We have an all singing, all dancing PC, takes too long to boot, can't carry if around and damned inconvenient when lying in bed. But handy logging on to the tax office once a year.

 

[ChristineM]

Go on....... say 'Worcestershire Sauce'.

Is that a bet?

 

[oldbadger]

Just ignore the British spelling and say "wusstershir" sauce.

I had a British employee that I drove nuts. I could borrow pronounce English towns the way that they were spelled and the way that locals pronounced them. I was lucky that she did not test me on Welsh villages, but then I have a sneaking suspicion that other Brits cannot pronounce those either.

English places and locals. Yes.
Somewhere to the West of Maidstone, Kent, UK is a hamlet called Trottisliegh or something like that (I can't find it just now). 40 years ago I had to travel to this place to security-survey a property. I must have stopped 20 times to ask locals for directions and every one told me that there was no such place anywhere nearby.
I eventually 'phoned the local office to explain my problem and the telephonist laughed herself silly and said,'
'Not Trotisliegh! They call it Trussly! They won't have known what you were talking about!'

 

[oldbadger]

I had a ...erm...affair with a British guy living in Rome...
I know how to pronoununce Worcestershire...
Something like voo- stah- shah

*chuckles*
I think that voo-stah-stah is a Russian village in the Ural mountains.

 

[Estro Felino]

*chuckles*
I think that voo-stah-stah is a Russian village in the Ural mountains.

That is why I am proud of my language