Webster put his seal of approval on "zee" in his first published dictionary, and then about a decade later the Alphabet song was copyrighted in the US, where "zee" rhymed with "me" in the last line. This is true in particular of Noah Webster, who wrote and published the first American English dictionary. It was a conscious decision in the 19th century on the part of American English dictionary compilers to make small changes in order to set up a different form of the language that was distinctive and slightly removed from its British roots. Zeta in Italian, Basque, Spanish, and Icelandic (no longer part of its alphabet but found in personal names), zê in Portuguese, zäta in Swedish, zæt in Danish, zet in Dutch, Indonesian, Polish, Romanian, and Czech, Zett in German (capitalised as a noun), zett in Norwegian, zède in French, zetto (ゼット) in Japanese romaji, and zét in Vietnamese.Īs with many things, the US are the primary exception here. Most European languages use this as the root for the letter. The British form is based on the historical root, from the Greek letter zeta (Z/ ζ). Ze drem vil finali kum tru! And zen world! Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.Īfter zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"s in the language is disgraseful, and they should go away.īy the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be ekspekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German which was the other possibility.Īs part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five year phase-in plan that would be known as "Euro-English". Please do not cite or rely upon AI tools when asking or answering questions on r/etymology. Language models are an emerging tool that can often give assertive but specious answers. Keep your posts and comments friendly and remember the human. Disputed origins should have a warningĬonnections and word origins that are speculative, disputed, or otherwise specious should be shared with wording that reflects the uncertain origin to avoid being misleading. If you still have questions, by all means post here if your question is totally solved, consider sharing the answer with the community instead! 4. Perform basic researchĪs a courtesy to other users of the community, before posting a question, please use the resources in the subreddit sidebar to try to find an answer. As well as the history and development of words, on-topic content also includes the origin of phrases, which deal with changes in meaning. Try to capture what's interesting about the etymology. Word origins posted here should have more to offer than just a link to a dictionary definition. View or add to our book list! Useful links Etymology is the study of the history of words and idioms, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.
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