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The Letter “Z” Will Be Removed from the English Alphabet

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Surprising as it sounds, it looks like the English alphabet will be losing one of its letters on June 1st. The announcement came from the English Language Central Commission (ELCC).

Here is a quote from the press release:

After carefully considering and debating the matter for over two years, the ELCC came to the conclusion that the letter “Z” should be removed from the English alphabet. The main objective of this change is to simplify the phonetic aspect of the language, and to unify the American and British spellings.

What will happen to the words that have the letter “z” in them? It depends on the word. According to the ELCC, words that started with a “z” will now start with an “x”. Examples include:

  • zero becomes xero
  • zoo becomes xoo
  • zone becomes xone
  • zodiac becomes xodiac

Words that featured a “z” with the “s” sound, on the other hand, will now be officially written with the “s” (i.e., unifying the American and British spelling). Examples include:

  • visualize becomes visualise
  • analyze becomes analyse
  • materialize becomes materialise

What do you think about this change? Will it really simplify the English language, or will it make things more confusing?

This post is an April fools prank.

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327 thoughts on “The Letter “Z” Will Be Removed from the English Alphabet”

  1. If this letter is really being took out then it really sad because ever since we were little it been in the thing

  2. And what in the world will happen to the alphabet song? W X Y and??? Besides, it represents a waste of money. All the redesign for new electronic products’ keyboards…. CRASYYYY!!!

  3. This is definitely crazy! This is not a matter of developing phobia for change but the reasons for the change is untenable…
    Why unify the British & American English? Does that also unify the pronunciation? British is British and American is American: each should retain her phonetic heritage and patrimony

  4. If you scroll back to the beginning and check the date, you’ll note that this was all an April Fool’s Day joke!

  5. This is a clear example of people not having work to do.

    What will you represent “Zzzzzzz” (Sleep sound) with? “Sssssss”?

  6. Oh, this cannot be! Not Z! I refuse to discard the letter Z. This must be a joke. Of all the corrections they could make to the alphabet, why pick on Z? Why not K? I mean, we do have C to cover for K.

  7. This is not not good! why to remove any letter..
    what about the people who has their name starting with Z
    like Zaheer or Zen.
    It was good letter to differanciate between the Hindi letters “ज
    ” and “झ”

    झ = jh
    ज = z

    Please dont remove “Z”
    What will be Zee TV the “XEE” TV?

  8. Instead they would have removed some ‘la’s ‘ra’s & ‘na’s in Tamil.
    Thatt would be great!!

  9. Ok,

    First they should find a new letter instead of “z”, then they may remove it. To remove such a letter from a language is HUGE change you know….

    I don´t know how the people are going to accept it!!!!

  10. Means, both these sentences would be the same??

    some zones where there are zoos may have zebras playing xylophones with excitement during xmas

    some xones where there are xoos may have xebras playing xylophones with excitement during xmas

  11. I really agreed on this discussion that the Letter ‘Z’ should be remove from alphabets.

  12. Please do not confuse with English Z & hindi झ…here the debate is for english letter ‘Z’. -Rajeev

  13. if we go by phonetic , it might be a good suggestion, but there are many Names which cannot be changed just for the sake of phonetic of ‘Z’ letter.

    One of such instant is my Name only, if I change to
    Raxa—looks tooo awkward
    Rasa–Does not match at all….

    above is just an example, like that many are there, which would go absorb by this change.

    So, please give an second thought before makeing any such decisions and would be better to leave the letter as it is

    regards
    Abbas Raza.

  14. Does anyone know where is English Language Central Commission (ELCC)? Anyway this is a good one for April 1st.

  15. I’m so glad I used Greek alphabet.
    BUT THIS IS CRAXY!
    And my friend’s name is Zerelda. Zerelda = Xerelda? I don’t think so.

  16. Post #122 WIN
    Oh and how are we going to sing the alphabet now with “Z” missing?
    Bollocks.

  17. It would be SO awkward… I mean… Z, would be removed? WHATS UP WITH THIS ELC businesss???? they are getting SERIOUSLY strange. Then our kids of the future will sing “y and x now I know my ABC’s” EVEN THOUGH THEY DO NOT KNOW their ABC’s!

  18. in india we already believe ‘English is a very very funny lanugage’.. seems more fun is on way..the idea tickle me..

  19. Hi all
    This scenario will leads to a catastrophic situations. The origin of almost languages are from our Prophets, Saints, Gurus its…
    We don’t have any right to ad or remove anything from the fundamentals of English.

  20. Nice “All Fools Day” joke. Beautifully written! To celebrate the exit of ‘z’, people will ‘booxe’ and extra peg. What about Zakirs, Zafars, Zias… Razzaqs…. What is this razzmatazz?

    Also next year they want to change the calendar so that we have only 10 months in a year.

    Good Luck.

  21. If these people think of removing “Z” then why are they not thinking to correct the spellings of many words. The words should be spelled as it sounds, example : KNIFE should be NIFE, PHYSICS should be FEZICS and so on.

    These guys, i think have crossed the retirement age or they are retired and have nothing to do.

  22. Not good idea :(( cant think of removing ‘Z’….it will create more confusion for everyone !!!

  23. What about my favourite cartoon series “Dragonball Z”. Will it be called Dragonball X / Dragonball S / Dragonball C ????

  24. This is a great set back to those who are playing Scrabble. It will reduce their chance of scoring a triple or a double. I think they will have to reconsider their decision on this. 😀 🙂

  25. as per international standard we are using x,y, and “z” for indicating 3D GRAPHS . instead of “z” what will be ELCC’s suggestion.

  26. How will the word SEZ(Special Economic Zone) be pronounced now as Z will be replaced with X

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