U is Not a Word!

I was looking at a Facebook update on the weekend, and for such a short message it had a large number of errors. The kind of errors I would hope most people can see immediately, if they have a decent grasp of the English language. I pointed it out to my husband, who was about as put off by it as I was. It was meant to convey a message about what the individual was doing at that moment in time, but it also told a story about what the person hadn't been doing the past few years. And probably, about what that young person's teachers had been neglecting too.

I know I'm not the only one who appreciates a well crafted turn of phrase. There are still literate people out there who enjoy reading a colourful description. There are still lots of curmudgeons who complain about the mistaken substitution of certain homophones in writing, and who are concerned with how common netspeak has become.

No, "U" is not a word! It's one thing when you are paying for a newspaper ad by the letter, or when you are limited to 140 characters per Tweet. But what about when the abbreviations creep into your other writing? What about when netspeak creeps into your verbal self-expression? Have you ever caught yourself saying "LOL" or "OMG" out loud?

I learned to use abbreviations and self-styled shorthand in high school to take notes. These are useful things, as are the abbreviations that allow people to convey meaning concisely using a Tweet or a text message. I'm not a fan of certain abbreviations, but there are lots that I will use. And hey, I'll gladly add an emoticon where it fits too.

But I am concerned. In this world of electronic everything, autocomplete functions, and fill-in-the-blanks worksheets, are we getting enough practice actually writing out full words and sentences? Do our kids ever do boardwork at school? Do they really learn to write compositions and essays, or are they being taught essentially to cut and paste? Will they remember how to write something out longhand when it matters?

College professors complain that we have an entire generation of high school graduates who can't do simple arithmetic without a calculator. how many of these same young people similarly can't construct a sentence or a paragraph, don't know how to write a business letter, and think that "U" is a word?

My daughter was saying the other day that she doubts a certain public figure would respond if she wrote to him, so I told her to send him a letter and see what happens. Her response was, "I don't know how to write a letter."

Time to get out the writing pad! If I'm going to complain about it, I'd best be doing something to fix the problem too. It's time to review letter writing skills with my girls...

I'm blogging my way from Z to A in May!
You can find my "V" post at The Special Needs Family.

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Z is for Zed, and I'm Not Giving It Up!

I began my education in Southern Ontario, where teachers regularly chastised students for the use of American spelling and where the letter z was most definitely pronounced "zed."

Moving to Quebec after five years of singing God Save the Queen at school assemblies and learning that "practice" is a noun and "practise" is a verb, I found "zed" was one of the few things I had in common with my classmates. It even came in handy when I tackled the job of catching up on five years of French classes in one semester. With the strange pronunciations of some letters and the interchanging of g/j and the fact that "ee" was an i, at least there was one letter in the French alphabet whose name I already knew!

Izzard

Those who think of "zee" as the dominant pronunciation may be surprised to learn that most of the English speaking world says "zed." Pronunciation in many other languages is close, often something like "zet" or "zeta." But the letter has gone by a number of other names in its history, including "izzard." Speakers of some English dialects may be familiar with this word for its use in the expression, "from A to izzard." The meaning is intuitive: a large collection of things; the whole of something. We have a full range of products to fill your needs, from A to izzard.

A similar expression is, "to know A from izzard." It could easily replace a more common idiom, which compares one's rear end to one's elbow. He has no idea what he's doing. He doesn't know A from izzard. It's a colourful expression that would be fun to incorporate into your writing.

American Origin?

If you were thinking "zee" originated in the United States, I'm sorry to have to disappoint you. The alternative pronunciation apparently was in use in at least one region of England in the 17th century, and would have come to North America with speakers of that particular dialect. You may also be surprised to learn that z wasn't always the last letter of the alphabet. It was borrowed into Latin from the Greeks, who placed it near the beginning of their alphabet. The Semitic zayin, origin of the Greek zeta, also comes closer to the beginning.

American Pronunciation Overcoming the Zed?

And what of the suggestion that the pronunciation favoured by Americans is suppressing the use of "zed" in Canada and other countries? I am one of the first to bemoan the fact that today's school teachers commonly fail to use, let alone teach, standard Canadian English. But it seems that at least where zed is concerned, Canadians are holding fast to their language.

Linguist Jack Chambers writes that the zee/zed controversy has been with us since at least 1846. He describes the use of "zee" by Canadian youth as an age-graded change, which repeats itself over successive generations. The trend is for young people to adopt the use of "zed" as they get older. There is no overall decline of "zed," nor any increase in the use of "zee" in the population Chambers studied.

In other words, younger Canadian children may prefer "zee" because of their exposure to it through popular songs and educational TV produced the US. But as a population, we drop "zee" in favour of "zed" as we mature.

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