In most English-speaking countries, including Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom, the letter's name is zed /zɛd/, reflecting its derivation from the Greek letter zeta (this dates to Latin, which borrowed Y and Z from Greek), but in American English its name is zee /ziː/, ...
In Australia, Australian/British spelling is preferred. The letter 's' is used, rather than the letter 'z' (American spelling).
As zed is the British pronunciation and zee is chiefly American, zed represents one of the rare occasions in which most Canadians prefer the British to the American pronunciation.
But it's not just the United Kingdom that uses “zed”; it's what you'll hear in every English-speaking country, besides the United States, which adheres firmly to “zee.” America certainly has a habit of insisting on doing things differently from the rest of the world, from its non-metric system of measurement to ...
As you can imagine, the British zed is the older of the two pronunciations, and it dates all the way back to the 1400s. The pronunciation stems from Latin and Greek, as both ancient languages have a similarly pronounced equivalent: zeta.
Zed is widely known to be used in British English. But it's also used in almost every English-speaking country. In England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Australia, India, Canada (usually), and New Zealand, Z is pronounced as zed. It's derived from the Greek letter zeta.
The name zee itself is thought to have originated as nothing more than a dialect variation of zed, probably influenced by the regular bee, cee, dee, ee pattern of much of the rest of the alphabet.
Mom and Mommy are old-English words, words that are stilled used in Birmingham and most parts of the West Midlands. It is said that when people from the West Midlands went to America many years ago they took the spelling with them, hence Americans use Mom and Mommy.
Over time the word "locum" evolved into the French word "lieu", which is pronounced in French as it is spelled. It is possible that when the English heard the French pronounce the compound word lieutenant, they perceived a slurring which they heard as a "v" or "f" sound between the first and second syllables.
The American Chemical Society (ACS) officially adopted aluminum in 1925, but in 1990 The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) accepted aluminium as the international standard. And so we land today: with aluminum used by the English speakers of North America, and aluminium used everywhere else.
Its name in English is aitch (pronounced /eɪtʃ/, plural aitches), or regionally haitch /heɪtʃ/. This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
Conventionally, as we Indians follow British English, we used to follow the British pronunciation of 'z' that is 'zed'.
As you may already know, the Standard Phonetic Alphabet used in Australia is actually the NATO Phonetic Alphabet – the same as that used in the UK.
Australian English follows British spelling very closely but many common words are spelt differently in American English. Despite being spelt differently, the meaning of the word is the same.
“Colonel” came to English from the mid-16th-century French word coronelle, meaning commander of a regiment, or column, of soldiers. By the mid-17th century, the spelling and French pronunciation had changed to colonnel. The English spelling also changed, and the pronunciation was shortened to two syllables.
The French also took this word from the Italians. But when they added it to their language, they changed the word "colonnelo" to "coronel." Language experts say this is because the French wanted to have the "r" sound in the word, instead of the two "l" sounds.
The UK version is more logical. Math is an abbreviation of mathematics, which is a count noun in British English because there are different types of maths (geometry, algebra, calculus, etc.) and a mass noun that happens to end in an 's' in American English (like gymnastics in both dialects).
Forget Mum or Mom, in northern England they usually like calling their mothers Mam. The pronunciation, of course, will vary for Mam whether you're a Northumbrian or Geordie. This term of endearment for mother is also very common in Scotland and Northern Ireland. In Ireland Ma is also frequently used instead of Mam.
English zucchini goes by courgette in England, the French word for the green gourd. The United States inherited the Italian name, and both terms reference the summer squash. Note that the word squash refers to a fruity drink in Britain, and a mature version of the courgette fruit becomes marrow.
"Us" for me is common in the north east (of England) particularly Co Durham Land of Prince Bishops. It's just an old English way of speaking. Many people say "us" but if they are writing will use the word "me".