If this show was really set in Toronto, it would be Hope Zed, not Hope Zee. Only Americans call the last letter zee, all other English speaking countries pronounce it zed. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z)
shareI thought the hospital was called Hope Zion? The show is set in Toronto. It's been established a couple times already.
shareIt is Hope Zion so I guess it can be set in Toronto after all.
I'm suffering from TBW... True Blood Withdrawals...
Then it would be pronounced "zed" as Canadians, Australians and every other English speaking country but the US says it. But since the show has been sold to ABC, they have to pronounce it the American way. Perhaps a younger generation who grew up on the American version of Sesame Street say "zee", but for my generation (mid-fifties) whenever you heard somebody say "zee", you asked "what part of the states are you from?"
shareBut since the show has been sold to ABC
I'm Canadian and I say both "zee" and "zed". Mostly "zee". It just depends....when I say the alphabet or am spelling something, I say "zee". But if I'm am talking about and object like a Camaro z28.....I say "zed 28". It just sounds better. Lol
shareI say "Zee" but I'm not American.
The show really is set in Toronto.
sometimes there's honor in revenge.
what, you got a secret stash of happy pills?
actually they are not the only ones.....i asked someone from new zealand about it once...and she said that actually the say zee too...it all depends on what you want to use........when it all comes down to it...
like we have a radio station called ez rock..and it's called ezee...not e zed....
so...it all depends on the taste..
some in britain prounounce it ze bra....while others say zee bra......so....it's slowly changing...
susan
And conversely, although I am an American, when saying the letter, which I seldom do, I pronounce it zed as well. It may be because of the years, 1982-84, I was stationed in the Midlands and then consequently watching so much British television and films. The only time I pronounce h as haitch is when I'm running through the alphabet, though.
shareIn episode 8 - season 2 - you can see money and it is not US dollars! So I'd say it's probably canadian but I don't know what canadian dollars look like so...
sharethey also took the ae, combo out of words like encyclopeadia....hemeatoma....heamogloban....all that kind of stuff....
susan
so the americans have done a lot of word hacking......as far as I'm concerned......
and sadly it's accepted.....because of the computer......
Canadian kids dont' even know that they are spelling it all the American way....
and even a teacher that I know who's 66, was what do you mean theater is theatre.....and centre, and all that....
so.....since all our text books are mostly American.......
susan
I know the characters call it Hope "Z" if that is what you are referring to.
shareIm canadian and I say Zee.
shareI'm American and I often say zed.
shareIf you say zed then it is something you picked up on your own. No one in the US is taught to say zed. It is always pronounced like the letter. It would make no sense in a TV show to say zed when they are trying to shortcut saying Zion in this show. It would sound silly.
sharewhen i'm in the states shopping, i have to say zee, when i'm spelling my last name.....i begin with zed, and they're hugh...so.......sometimes when you're at the cash, you have to give them your name.......
susan
@Susan: I had to laugh when I read your post - in the States, we call the "cash" the "checkout," and sometimes we simply "get in line." We also use the term "cashier." I travel somewhat frequently in Europe so I'm aware that most Europeans call it "the cash," as well, but I was unaware that it was a Canadian term. Thanks for the enlightenment (and the chuckle!).
shareAnd I'm from Canada - I pronounce it either 'zed' or 'zee', depending on my mood - and I've never heard anyone else that was born in Canada refer the 'the cash', it's always been 'the checkout'. But I, too, had to laugh at how Susan said Americans were 'hugh'... is that as in 'Hugh Jackman'? Or are they maybe 'hunh?'...? ;-P
shareThanks for the clarification, kdmacd. I thought it was a little odd, because I've been to Canada on several occasions, and never seen it referred to as "the cash." I guess I thought it might be (and I just never noticed it), because it is referred to that way in some countries in Europe. Hmm - I wonder if Canadians who speak primarily French are thinking "la caisse" and shortening the English translation simply to "cash." Maybe I'm overthinking . . .
shareyou are over thinking it......
for me i find it easier to say cash.......
susan
how do you spell it then....hugh........
lol
susan
Maybe "huge" is what you meant to write ...?
shareIn order to avoid confusion with the name "Hugh", you'd have to spell it "huh" or "hunh" or something else other than "hugh".
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we do mostly as well......but, i'm never sure what to call it.....so..
susan
speaking of cash...i was waiting a couple of weeks ago in a long line up at chapters..(bookstore) and the woman in front of me, said how many people are at the cash...
so.....i'm not the only one....who calls it the cash...lol
susan
Im Canadian, born and raised in Toronto, and I say ZEE. Always have. Nobody I know says ZED. lol
I'm thinking it's probably just dialect, depending where you're from. The official way of pronouncing it may be zed, but I think southern ON is more heavily influenced by the US than the Prairies. So with the hospital being in that area, it makes sense it would be called "Hope Zee", even if it's not strictly "Canadian".
BTW, I'm from the Prairies, and I really had to think about how I pronounce it...pretty sure I use zed but I'm not entirely sure...
I was also wondering where Zion hospital is set as well.
shareI've been trying to find Hope Zion for 2 years and just saw the same building used in "American Girl - Isabelle Dances Her Way To The Top (2014 movie) as a ballet theatre.
Jumped on Google Earth and looked in Mississauga (surburb of Toronto).
BINGO - the actual building is the "Living arts Centre" at 4144 Living Arts Drive Mississauga Ontario (you can find this in Wikipedia).
Their electronic sign in front of the building can be changed to display any name at all. In scenes shot in the lobby, you can see "Hammerson Hall" written on the back wall of the lobby usually hidden by bodies or camera angles - this is where the symphony orchestra plays.
Hallways and operating rooms probably in some studio elsewhere in Toronto.
There is no such hospital in Toronto - sorry.
The first sentence in the Wiki description of the show says 'the fictional Hope Zion hospital in Toronto'. I doubt very few if any fictional medical shows film the majority of their scenes in a real hospital. If anyone knows of any, please share.
I've seen some behind-the-scenes videos and it's a very beautiful and realistic looking set. They also have real medical equipment and medical staff on hand.
Milo, I've told you again and again - please, don't walk on the chickens!
I doubt very few if any fictional medical shows film the majority of their scenes in a real hospital. If anyone knows of any, please share.Scrubs used an abandoned hospital in California (I want to say Burbank) and retrofitted it for the vast majority of it's production needs. They turned some of the old hospital rooms into the various apartments the characters had, some became dressing rooms and other production facilities; and of course there were sections kept the same to serve as a hospital. The parking lot and entrance was used for that setting and shown often; I believe they talked about the actual production parking being a bit further removed for that reason.
my 2 cents:
I live in the Vancouver area. I say "zed" most of the time (90% of the time, perhaps), but "zee" is also very familiar.
My impression is that people in Southwestern BC are saying "zed" about 60% of the time and "zee" 40% of the time.
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OK - "Zee" vs "Zed" is an issue in Ontario because we are so close to the US. This happens also in Canada and other places because of US news, movies and television. As far as radio stations using Z as "Zee" in their names...that's just for marketing (it sounds better when you say it) but it doesn't mean that it is proper English to say "Zee" rather than "Zed"
All these Canadians saying "I'm Canadian and I say Zee. I've always said zee..." Your parents and your teachers should have taught you better. Again, just because you say it that way or others do doesn't make it correct!
If Hope Zion is a Canadian Hospital (It's a lot nicer than any I've seen...) then calling it Hope Zee is wrong. I don't care how influenced we are by the States. Hope Zi (long I) would have worked too.
And now just because I'm in a pissy mood here is a list of words that Canadians could spell properly but many don't:
COLOUR
HONOUR
HUMOUR
VALOUR
CENTRE
I also have issues with using z in words like realise, recognise, organise. Proper English, British English is the way things should be written.
I am hoping that the location of hope Zion will be revealed eventually.
share[deleted]
All these Canadians saying "I'm Canadian and I say Zee. I've always said zee..." Your parents and your teachers should have taught you better. Again, just because you say it that way or others do doesn't make it correct!
This whole discussion is very interesting to me.
I am American and speak fluent English. I've always pronounced the 'z' as 'zee'.
I also studied French for six years (including the first two years where I won awards in State finals for the language), where the letter was pronounced 'zed'.
I never realized that French speakers thought most other languages pronounced it their way, because the 'd' in 'zed' is actually pretty rare among English and European speakers.
I mean, I get it if you mean you pronounce it 'zeh(d)' with no actual 'd' at the end. But Francophile countries are the only ones that I know of that actually put the hard 'd' at the end of the word.
According to Wikipedia:
"Other languages spell the letter's name in a similar way: zeta in Italian, Spanish and Icelandic (no longer part of its alphabet but found in personal names), zäta in Swedish, zæt in Danish, zet in Dutch, Polish, Romanian and Czech, Zett in German (capitalized as noun), zett in Norwegian, zède in French, and zê in Portuguese.
Several languages lacking /z/ as phoneme render it as /ts/~/dz/, e.g. zeta /tsetɑ/ or /tset/ in Finnish. In Mandarin Chinese pinyin the name of the letter Z is pronounced [tsɨ], although the English 'zed' and American English 'zee' have become very common." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z
Only France (and Canada and other Francophile countries) pronounces the hard 'd' at the end of the letter. At least, according to wiki, which I do understand is not the greatest source.
I will note that it was always interesting to me that the French language dropped most ending continents, but kept the 'd' on 'zed'. After six years, I still don't fully understand the full word for a letter, and I admit my fault there. The only thing I can assume is that it is actually pronounced 'zeh(d)' like 'said' with a z and dropping the hard 'd' at the end? Or has my American education ruined any ability to truly learn and understand the French language?
@barbie: FYI - the French "zed" is spelled "zède,"e which explains why the /d/ is enunciated. The "word" "zed" arises from the Greek alphabet, and the corresponding letter is pronounced "zeta" (zayta).
Your study of other languages helps to understand the whys and wherefores of linguistic quirks, but actually studying linguistics helps even more. Sometimes you can "see" the way languages progress and diverge (or converge) as they evolve, and sometimes you have to question it and dig deeper.
I think your main question is reflecting that you might be overthinking the matter a bit. When I said that "zed" was more common in other languages, I didn't mean it literally - some form of "zeta" is the word in most other languages that include the letter "z" in their alphabet, even if it's only borrowed from other languages. Its function in the language depends, naturally, on the language it's in - for example, in English, /s/ and /z/ are usually cognates of each other, meaning, they are produced in the same manner (fricative) and placement (alveolar), but differ in voicing (/s/ is voiceless, /z/ is voiced). So the words "Sue" and "zoo" are completely different in meaning but are phonetic minimal pairs (differing not only in a single phoneme, but in a stricter sense - by only a single feature (voiced vs voiceless). However, /s/ and /z/ in German are distributed differently - there aren't any German words that begin with the /s/ sound, even if they're spelled that way - it would be pronounced /z/. So in German, they are not different phonemes, they are allophones of the same sound family. The letter "z" in German is pronounced /ts/ - as in "zu" = /tsu/. My point is that the sound /z/ in German is represented by the letter "s," and the letter "z" represents the sound /ts/.
Most Europeans, when reciting the Latin alphabet "in English" will say "zed" or "zeta" instead of "zee." After a long and convoluted explanation, that's basically what I meant
neat . . . sweet . . . petite
"But, given that it is a dialectal difference, there's no actual "official" pronunciation of /zed/ vs /zee/ - say it to any speaker of English and chances are he or she will understand you, if not at first, rather quickly."
I agree (with the boldface). I'm Canadian and I have "zed" in my NAME, and if someone said "zee" to me, I would know exactly what they were saying and I might not even notice that they said something different from "zed".
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Scarlett Johansson is Miss Peel, Clark Gregg is John Steed, but who the heck are the others?!
i'm glad that someone else does.....because I always try to spell the words like that...
COLOUR
HONOUR
HUMOUR
VALOUR
CENTRE
one other that I cringe at is neighbour..(without the U)......maybe if they'd give that aussie soap to americans they'd learn to spell those kinds of words right....
I also have issues with using z in words like realise, recognise, organise. Proper English, British English is the way things should be written.
I got an e-mail once......can't remember why....but, it was ok, now that America has screwed up so much..(it was a couple of months ago), here is what we're going to do...
you will learn to put the U back into words....
you will spell words realise, instead of realize, and that kind of idea....
wish that I still had that e-mail so I could put it here...
it had other stuff....about football, and that kind of idea....
susan
It is actually set in Mississauga. So yes it is very much Canadian.
share