

Not that it was an intentional alteration, but there was a regional dialect in the US (and, it must be said, in parts of England) that pronounced it zee (as there were others that pronounced it zad, zard, ezod, izzard, and uzzard), and this was one difference in the vocabulary which was seized upon by post-George III America.Īccording to the Concise Oxford Companion, "The modification of zed. The last thing an American wanted to sound like after the Revolution was an Englishman, or vice-versa. The reason we don't is because we had a pretty major falling out with the people that did, and in the aftermath, seized on dialectical nuances and amplified them. "Zed" comes from the original Greek zeta via Old French zede, and pretty much all English speakers worldwide pronounce it that way. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.As usual in most of these matters, it's we the people of the US that changed it, not the other way around. It is also an accepted substitute for yea in a voice vote in the US House of Representatives. This archaism is still used as the formal response meaning “yes” in the British House of Commons. How do you say yes in a British accent?Īye. Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.

Is H voiceless?Īs with all other consonants, surrounding vowels influence the pronunciation, and has sometimes been presented as a voiceless vowel, having the place of articulation of these surrounding vowels. When you say a sound, if you can feel a vibration it is a voiced sound. You can tell if a sound is voiced or not by putting your hand gently on your throat. A voiceless sound is one that just uses air to make the sound and not the voice. Some consonant sounds are voiced and some are voiceless. How do you tell if a word is voiced or voiceless? S and Z can also be made by placing the tongue tip against the lower teeth and raising the tongue just behind the tip against the upper gums. The breath passes over the center of the tongue and hits the front teeth creating a hissing (S) or buzzing (Z) sound. Z also usually maintains the /z/ pronunciation if it is doubled in the middle of a word, as in: blizzard (/ˈblɪzərd/) dazzle (/ˈdæzəl/) fuzzy (/ˈfʌzi/) How do you elicit S and Z? Whether or not you want to use this form is up to you, but I think it depends very much on what kind of website you want: is it a personal or business website?Īdvertisement Which word has the z sound? The use of z instead of s is colloquial and informal. In most English-speaking countries, including Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, 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 name is zee … Can I use Z instead of S?Ĥ Answers. Unfortunately, there’s generally no clear way to predict if S will have an /s/ or /z/ pronunciation in these words. While we typically double S when it appears after a short vowel sound at the end of a word, when it comes after a long vowel sound, S is usually followed by a silent E. This small difference does matter because the S sound is voiceless, and the Z sound is voiced. How do the consonants S and Z differ?Īs a non-native English speaker, you may sometimes get confused that “s” doesn’t pronounce like “s”, but more sounds like “z”. However, usage of the “z” can also be occasionally seen in British English, in words such as “citizen”. Some words in English use “ s” where “z” is used in American English.

Say “Z when the word ends in a vowel or other voiced sound like the m, n, ng, l, b, d, g, v, voiced th, or r sound. When a verb or noun is modified by adding an “S” ending use the “S or Z” sound according to the following rule: Say “IZ when the word ends in s, z, sh, zh, ch, or j sound. What are the three rules to follow when S turns to Z? e.g., logs, tubes, beds, moves, clothes, was, becomes, he’s, passes. When the letter ‘s’ is after a vowel, another ‘s’, or a voiced consonant, it is pronounced as a /z/ sound. How do you say yes in a British accent?.How do you tell if a word is voiced or voiceless?.What are the three rules to follow when S turns to Z?.
