ABSTRACT
This is the British pronunciation of the letter z, usually zee in the USA. Shakespeare has Kent call Oswald, in King Lear (2:ii), ‘Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter!’ The last statement is not strictly true, since z is not actually a redundant letter as is c, which could always be replaced by s or k, and q, which could be k. Nevertheless, only a wordsmith like Shakespeare would have conceived such a linguistic insult. Sinclair Lewis, in Bethel Merriday, has a character who is called Zed Wintergeist. Another character speculates that he may really be a Zedekiah.
