Pronunciation (was : On the subject of naming the Dapper successor )

[Pete Ryland]

On Mon, Feb 20, 2006 at 03:43:34PM -0400, Derek Broughton wrote:
> Peter Garrett wrote:
> > On Mon, 20 Feb 2006 13:57:18 -0500 Shawn McMahon <smcmahon at eiv.com>
> > wrote:
> >> > Yeah, that's definitely a US thing.  I guess pronouncing "zero" as
> >> > "oh" must be a US thing too?
> > 
> > Common in Australia. In fact you rarely hear 'zero" in Australia used in
> > common speech.
> 
> You wouldn't hear it much in England either.  It would more likely be
> "naught" - as in the current decade, the Naughties.

:-)

I always thought of naught/nought as the number, and zero as the digit, but
this isn't supported by CIDE or WordNet.

> > It's more a mathematical / scientific / geek word. Two identical
> > numerals in a phone number will be pronounced, for instance "double oh"
> > or "double four" , as well. I haven't heard Americans do that either...

In the UK, it seems fashionable to say "treble" rather than "triple" for a
trebly-repeated digit of a phone number.

> >> Dunno.  What I've wondered about is how many countries say "zee" and
> >> how many say "zed"?
> > 
> > 'Zed" is British in origin, as far as I know. Most Commonwealth
> > countries would use "zed" rather than "zee". "British heritage"
> > countries tend to say "beeta" rather than "bayta" for "beta", I would
> > say also.
> 
> Zed is very nearly dead in Canada.

Traditionally, it's "zed" outside North America (not counting non-native
speakers), but according to a Sydney Morning Herald article I read a few
weeks ago, young'uns in Australia now prefer "zee", presumably picked up
from Sesame Street.

Pete