Sunday, April 11, 2010

W X Y Zed

Of all of the differences between life in Australia and life in the United States, nothing has been a startling as learning that the letter Z is pronounced "Zed" not "zee." I mean, I can handle going clockwise through a rotary, but Zed?!! That's messed up.

In somewhat related news, an ATM ate my bank card on Friday night, which I use to pay for my fancy internet dongle, so posting might be a little scarce over the next few days until my new card arrives and I can recharge the dongle (DIRTY!). I guess I've been a bit of a slacker about blogging lately, but no worries, I'll get back on the ole bloghorse soon enough. My bank is ANZ, and until I figured out the whole Z=Zed thing I had no idea what people were saying when they said my bank's name.

5 comments:

Suldog said...

'Zed' sounds like the diminutive of some biblical name, perhaps Zedediah.

Jeff said...

First of all, you lived in Massachusetts so don't pretend you've never seen someone going clockwise through a rotary. Secondly, as an American you are required to impose American values and American culture where ever you go. None of this "zed" crap.

Butch said...

Zed's dead baby, zed's dead.

Kevin said...

Ha! It took you 2 months in Oz to learn the alphabet? I fully support your newly bestowed mission to get those Aussies to pronounce it the proper way. I'm doing my bit here in the UK. I could be nerdy and tell you the factual reason why zee is correct rather than zed, but I won't bore you here!

peacay said...

You might pause to consider that the zee is actually the perversion of the original zed from blighty ;- P