Press 9 for Zed
=v= I called up a business today and got a company directory system, which told me, in the standard American phone menu woman's voice, to spell out the name of the party I'm trying to call. It instructed me to press 7 for Q, and then, "Press 9 for Zed."
Most Americans would say "Z," but not this phone menu. Curiouser and curiouser, as of a minute ago, Google searches for "press 9 for zed" and even "press nine for zed" came up empty.
You probably reached a company (or a call center) in Canada. We say "zed" here. It's a bit of heritage (or holdover) from our British past.
Posted by jay on April 12 2004 12:14
over the telephone, 'zed' won't be confused with 'c' as 'zee' might be.
ryan from canada
Posted by rcyeske on April 12 2004 12:26
Sounds like a short story collection title to me. Now all you have to do is write a telecommunications-related short story, and also a dozen or so others you want to collect with it. Thank God the hard part's out of the way.
Posted by Mris on April 13 2004 04:54
I was going to say that I was baffled by what would be so unusual about someone using Canadian/British/Australian (Indian?) usage -- it's not as if Americans invented English -- but I see the point has already been made.
Posted by Gary Farber on April 22 2004 00:48
=v= The business is in New York City, not Canada. The message also said "for Q," which I think is confusable with worse things than the letter C. I went into the business and the phones themselves had the letters Q and Z printed on the 0 key, not on the 7 and 9 keys.
Mostly I was disappointed because I dialed 9 and did not get Zed.
"Press 9 for Zed" would indeed be a great title for a collection of short stories.
Posted by Jym on April 26 2004 06:34