The Fake Internet Court of Australia
ZED v ZEE [2021]
H2816/1
The matter brought before this fake internet court today, is one of both maximum irrelevance and minimum importance. The matter which was heard in the Fake District Court of West Banana, was heard in the court house on Pedant Corner but no definite opinion was reached. Speaking as a jack of no trades and master of also none, I am uniquely qualified to make a final judgement on this matter as I am a proven generator of nonsense.
In fact before I pronounce judgement, I would like to thank my learned friends and esteemed colleagues Tom Foolery and Jack Anniny for acting as counsel for the two sides of the case.
These are the facts as I see them:
That bastard tongue of language, child of no father and vulture of all, who repeatedly steals from everywhere, that which we call the English Language, has itself spawned many children who are just as skilled in the art of larceny and thievery as their mother tongue. Consequently, it is not just the English or their siblings upon the sceptered isle (the Scots, the Welsh, and the Irish, who inhabit the rottenest bits of the British Isles) but indeed the vast majority of the Anglosphere who pronounce “z” as “zed”.
The primary exception and of course the loudest exception is the United States, where “z” is pronounced “zee”.
Why is it so?
English as a child who was born late in time relative to its neighbours, is the recipient of stolen goods; being an alphabet used by the Romans via the Greeks. The Romans took the Greek alphabet and adapted it, then via a labyrinthine process of time and isolation, English has added "J" and "W" but has also added and thrown away "Ð" and "Þ".
I personally would like to see both of those returned and "θ" and "Φ" added. The Welsh could also do with some extra letters, as they have a unique problem with "Ll" but at least they have sensibly gotten¹ rid of "X".
The English Language having acquired "Z" via a chain from Greek, would ordinarily take the name of the letter from Greek as well. The Greeks named the letter "Zeta" which is sensible enough but the ravages of space and time meant that it arrived in Old French as “Zede”; which in turn resulted in the English “Zed” around the 15th century.
As to the reason why people in the United States call “Z” “Zee”, the best that this court can ascertain is that this was simply adopted by convention so that "Zee" would rhyme with the pronunciation of the other letters like “Bee”, “Cee”, “Dee”, “Eee”, “Gee”, “Pee”, “Tee”, and “Vee”. This is entirely sensible on the part of the United States and their reasoning for doing so is entirely sound; as per the name of Aluminium which was changed in English from Aluminum. English and her variants are not only thieves, they are remanufacturers who tinker, invent, and then claim to have been correct all along.
As far as this court has been able to find, the earliest citation for the pronunciation of "Z" as "Zee" appears to be in 1677 with Lye’s New Spelling Book.
Language generally is always in a state of flux and so both "Zed" and "Zee" would have been in common usage for a while. However, the one instance which inexorably changed the pronunciation of "Z" forever was agitator-in-chief and five star blackguard and knave, Noah Webster. His "Blue Backed Speller" and subsequent dictionary published in 1827, is yet again the single biggest cause for difference between English and American English. Noah Webster knew exactly what he was doing and as far as my personal pedantry is concerned, he is my personal historical nemesis.
However, it is not for this court to allow personal prejudice to infect what should be impartial judgement; even though Noah Webster who is also represented by Jack Anniny QC, is very obviously wrong.
Noah Webster's dictionary being prescriptive rather than descriptive was a deliberate act of vandalism upon the language and its consequences have been long and wide ranging.
"The Alphabet Song" which was published and copyrighted in 1835, exists in a post Webstarian environment. The tune to The Alphabet Song is the same as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, which itself is probably an act of thievery from Haydn's Surprise Symphony. This act of marketing has been incredibly successful; with primary school teachers being forced to correct the convention in children who have been inadvertently indoctrinated; this was accelerated in the Anglosphere with the immensely successful Sesame Street, which at the end of every episode informs the viewer that the episode has been sponsored by various letters and numbers². As children are notoriously resistant to change after having undergone education, subsequent re-education is often difficult.
Final Judgement:
It is the opinion of this court that dictionaries should be descriptive and not prescriptive. It is also the opinion of this court that trying to undo the deliberate vandalism wrought by chief knave Noah Webster is like trying to hold back the Pacific Ocean with a fish fork. It is a futile task at best.
In this light, as "Zee" is well and truly in common usage and this court wishes to be descriptive, "Zee" should be allowed to stand as correctness depends on usage and English as she is actually spoke; rather than notions of trying to make it conform. A thousand years have shown that English refuses to be tied down and this court can no more rule on that than it can on the extent of its own power (which is also nil).
- ROLLO75 J
(this case will be reported in FILR as H2816/1 - Ed)
¹There is such a word as "gotten" and it is a past participle verb. It is correctly used for instance in the phrase "ill gotten gains".
²It has yet to be determined where big letter and big number is getting its funding from.
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