Zed or Zee?

[przyk]

Doesn't matter: They pronounce ZZ as zed-zed too.

Are you sure? I know the French pronounce Z as "zed" similar to the British, but the group's French Wikipedia page gives the pronounciation as "zi zi". Otherwise I don't know offhand. As I said, I only recently found out how the British pronounce it.

 

[Trippy]

OMG I'll bet you hit the nail on the head there! They have all kinds of double-entendres and suggestive material (Pearl Necklace, Tube Snake Boogie, etc)

Somewhere around I have a page of puns that are funny because of the different meanings of words in different languages that are (more or less) homophones.

The classic example (for me at least) being nein.

There's a portion from a Goon Show skit, set during WW2 where they're interrogating a German spy, who was posing as a Sheperd (Get it? He was a Shepherd Spy).
Interrogator: Are you married?
Spy: Jah.
I: How long?
S: Two years.
I: Any children?
S: Nein.
I: Nine children in two years?? You dirty beast!

More recently it came up in relation to Herman Caine's tax policy eg: "Congress Would Say 'Nein, Nein, Nein' To Cain's 9-9-9 Tax Plan" Forbes

You mean zeh-bruh and zeh-row, as in Zebulon?

Yup.

I think you have to be a native speaker to hear the difference between Parisian and Quebecois.

Are you able to distinguish between South African, Australian, and New Zealand accents?

 

[przyk]

I think you have to be a native speaker to hear the difference between Parisian and Quebecois.

I don't think you have to be fully native. I've spoken French all my life, but I was mostly brought up in English speaking environments and attended English speaking schools, and even though I've now been living in Brussels for over six years, I still speak with an accent (though evidently a rather odd one, since more than one person has asked me if I'm from Luxembourg). I don't hear much difference between Parisian and Bruxellois French, though natives do. I'm just aware of a difference between "urban" French and the "rural" French of people who have lived their entire lives in, say, the Ardennes (like in this comedy sketch). But if this is representative, I can easily hear the difference between that and the French I'm used to hearing around here. To me it almost sounds like they're pinching their noses when they speak!

 

[Rhaedas]

I never was aware of the "zed" pronunciation until an episode of Stargate (I can't recall if it was an SG-1 or the first Atlantis), where they are discussing the zero point module power sources of the Ancients, and the canadian scientist McKay called is the "zed P M". I seem to recall some commentary on proper pronunciation.

Added: It was the first SG:A episode.

McKay: "We need the zed P M to power the gate."
O'Neil "What?"
Daniel "Zee PM. He's Canadian."
O'Neil (to McKay) "I'm sorry."