Or the rap artist “Jay-Zed”?
We always say “Zee Zee Top” - I think there’s a sort of unspoken acceptance that they’ve earnt it. But you sometimes hear people say “Jay-Zed”, normally as a bit of gentle mockery.
Ah, so I’m guessing it wasn’t “Dragon Ball Zed” either, then.
I guess that makes sense, the Rush song doesn’t become YYZee in the US (mostly).
Grew up in South Africa (British English) and we always said “Dragonball Zee”
Am in Australia, we use ‘zed’ for the letter ‘z’. but it’s different for the band, as that’s a proper name. You go with the pronunciation of the owner of the name.
My buddy once showed me a funny interaction in the comments under a Top Gear video about the Corvette Z06. Being from the UK, the called it the Zed-06. But someone in the comments claimed that it should be pronounced Zee-06. The conversation went something like this:
“Why does he keep saying Zed-06? It’s Zee-06.”
“Because in England, where this video was made, we say ‘zed’”
“Well, in America, where the car was made, we say ‘zee’”
“Well, in England, where English was made, we say, ‘zed’”
Yes indeed, but I guess that’s because a model designation doesn’t feel the same as a proper noun - it’s just numbers and letters. Maybe…?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Well yeah if I saw a BMW 3 series I wouldn’t use the German pronunciation for 3. Why use the American pronunciation of Z?
I come from a “zed” country but we normally use the pronunciation of the people/creators.
So if I were reading the name “Jay-Z” for the first time and had never heard of him, I would think it was pronounced Jay-Zed or maybe Jays, but when I heard his name said by others I mentally adjusted it to Jay Zee.
Imagine if the whole alphabet was like zed instead of like zee:
a bed ced ded ed f ged h i j k l m n o ped q r s ted u ved w x y zed
“Find out next time, on Dragon Ball Zed”
