The Letter Z

Z

Z(ed) vs. Z(ee)

When my children were young I was a stay at home mom. An opportunity came up were I could earn extra money staying at home being a “Telemarketer”. Yes in the yesteryears of my motherhood…. I was one of those annoying people who call you up and bother you by asking silly time wasting questions while trying to sell you things, but hey, it was extra money. Anyway I had a small booklet of peoples names and phone numbers from both Canada and The United States. Now I do have American cousins and we always kid around with each other when it comes to accents and the differences in each others currency, but it was all in fun. Anyway back to my true story…….

My job was to call the Canadian numbers on one day and the American numbers on the next day and bother them with senseless question. Oh I had my fair share of hang ups and cussing and I even was told to get a real job before the receiver was slammed down on the other end. When it came to the days I was to call the American numbers I had quite the experience especially when it came to the southern States. There was one call I still giggle about when the gentleman became very confused when I had to spell his name to confirm his information. Well his name contained the letter Z and when I spelled his name back to him I said Z(ed) instead of Z(ee).

What he said next took me by surprise and made me think. ……

I really had no idea what he was meaning when he said “what the hell is Zed? I went on to inform him that Z(ed) was one of the letters in his name. He then retorted back that his name was not Zed. I said “I know your name is not Zed I was spelling out your name for confirmation.” He then said “you have my name wrong. My name is not Zed.” I took a deep breath and said “yes Sir, I know your name is not Zed, I was spelling your name. He said “is this a joke?” I said “no Sir I am just trying to confirm the proper spelling of your name.” He said “let me help you.” and then proceeded to spell his own name. I had to bite back a giggle when I realized where the

miss-communication was. After he was done I apologized to him and explained that I was a Canadian and that we pronounce the letter Z(ee) as Z(ed). He only grunted at my explanations. I thank him for his time and patience and was about to hang up when he had one final comment. He said, “Lady you Canadians need to learn the proper alphabet before bothering good people by such nonsense and then hung up.

Z(ed)

Z(ee)