RE: ZEE ZED

["A. Joseph Ross" <lawyer@world.std.com>]

On 12 Jul 2000,  Jeff @ GMM wrote:

> The genesis of the use of "ZED", I believe, was with the BBC in the
> early days of shortwave broadcasting.  It was quickly adopted by other
> radio services operating on shortwave in order to accommodate the
> interference from static, signal fades, and phase distortion inherent in
> typical shortwave broadcasts.
 
It goes back much earlier than that.  I remember a reference to "Zeds" 
somewhere in Charles Dickens's =David Copperfield=, which the version I 
read in 8th grade footnoted to explain that it referred to the letter Z..  
"Zed" happens also to be the French name for the letter Z.  Possibly other 
languages as well.


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