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Question for Canadians - do you say "zi" or "zed"? (piefed.social)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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All of the Canadian youtubers that I watch pronounce the letter z as "zi", as is done in the United States. However, I have read online that it is more common for Canadians to pronounce it as "zed", as is done in the United Kingdom. Is this a regional thing? How do you pronounce the letter z?

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[–] 5 points 6 months ago (6 children)

American here who always thought "Zed" was used for zero. Now I'm wondering if I ever made an ass of myself misinterpreting someone.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (5 children)

    As a Canadian, I have never heard anyone refer to zero as zed. I guess in theory if I was reading out a label or something that specifically had a "Z" to signify zero I would say zed, but that's because I'm saying the letter rather than because I'm saying zero, but I can't think of any time when someone would label something as "Z" to mean zero when they could just do "0", so I don't think that's common.

    Sorry bud.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago* (4 children)

    It's my understanding that Zed is used in England and possibly Australia for zero. I never knew Canadians used the word at all - let alone for a different meaning - until now.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Are you sure you're not thinking of "naught"? I'll admit I don't know that Brits don't use "Zed" for zero, but I've never heard it from any British YouTuber I've watched, including maths YouTubers, nor any British TV I've watched. But it's possible one of their dialects uses it maybe?

    All the ones I've heard say naught though.

    For completeness I'll say Canadians typically don't say naught unless they're British themselves, we say zero.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    I just did some searching, and cannot confirm what I thought was true. I've no idea where I picked it up because I've thought that was the case for decades now. Man, do I feel clueless. Sorry for the confusion. TIL.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    No worries! Those are some of my favourites: a long held belief with no basis in reality. It could be something you misinterpreted once and got locked away as a fact, or something an uncle or something could have said, and they were wrong. I've had a few of those myself where I'm like "where the hell did I even get that from..." 😛

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