Posted by Ed Kiser on December 16, 2006 at 04:48:29 from 64.12.116.6 user Kisered.
When I was listening to an audio tape by Woolf as he was reading aloud from Winter Holiday, he was spelling out letters of a word as it was being signaled by Nancy through the window. The word was "Spitzbergen". My attention jumped when he pronounced the letter, "Z" as "ZED", whereas I would have said "ZEE".
Is this a local dialect pronunciation of that last letter of the alphabet peculiar to Mr. Woolf, or is this yet another difference between the two flavors of what both sides of the big pond claim to be English?
That "ZED" pronunciation sounds like the way a German would say that letter in his alphabet, or at least close to that anyway.
Strike up another "oddity", as another thing we learn from experiencing All Things Ransome.
Here's hoping for everyone a Merry Christmas...
Ed Kiser, Kentucky