It was in the 80s when my cousins were little toddlers and were belting out nursery rhymes that I remember them singing the popular rhyme that teaches kids the letters in the English alphabet in a sing-sing manner thus:
ABCDEFG
HIJKMNOP
LMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ
XYZ, butter and bread
if you don’t like it better go to bed.
Today, after the turn of the millennium, I see the children of my friends singing the same nursery rhyme in the aforementioned way only till the third act and from here on, the script is given an entirely different spin.
ABCDEFG
HIJKLMNOP
QRS TUV
WX Y and Z
now I know my ABC
next time won’t you sing with me?
If you still need a more elaborate explanation, bread and bed rhyme with Zed while C and me rhyme with Zee.
Quentin Tarantino rem acu tetigisti-ed it best when his Butch in Pulp Fiction said 'Zed's dead baby, Zed's dead'.
Ironically, the dead Z has entered other areas where S was previously holding court. I being the luddite and anglophile that I am insist on spelling the words the way my English teacher taught me - Microsoft Word's spellchecker notwithstanding - viz. Organisation, Realisation, Cocacolanisation.
