(c) Dennis Skley, (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
There is no letter that I love more in the alphabet than the letter ‘z’. A strange affection for a letter, but I can no longer hide my obsession. There is something exotic and at the same time taboo about the last character of the Latin alphabet. It is the one letter that users of the English language argue about the most. Many English speaking EU countries leverage an ‘s’ in many words where American English utilize a ‘z’. Words like realize (realise) and serialize (serialise) interchange ‘z’ and ‘s’ dependent on geographical location or dialect at birth.
Chris Musgraves and I like to argue about this topic. The conversations usually begins with my annoyance that he swaps his ‘z’s with ‘s’s. Then he finds it hilarious to continue antagonizing me about my obsession. He is British and I’m American… we will never see eye to eye.
Is it strange that one loves a single letter so much? When hand writing, there is always a little flutter of excitement in my heart when I have to write a word that contains a ‘z’. Sometimes I go out of my way to write a word that contains a ‘z’ just so I can experience the joy in writing it. There have been times that I’ve gone to the extent of writing the solidary letter over and over again across paper. The zig and the zag of the pen stroke as the letter is fluidly scripted. Writing this letter is my zen, a way to calm myself when the craziness of life begins to take hold. I guess it is better than binge eating on ice cream when stressed out.
Oh, letter ‘z’, ‘zee’, ‘zed’, you wonderfully taboo little character! You will never understand my zealous and zany obsession over your existence. May you never comprehend my woefulness over the hearsay that you are dying out and in some languages cultures are already a dead letter. Letter ‘z’, you are such an integral part of our lives. Without you mathematical equations will become null, programming languages won’t compute, the exotic flare that you bring to vocabulary will fizzle out, and sleep will become disruptive because we will have lost our Zzzzzz’s. Hell, without you, we won’t have Zombies!
The world would be most boring without your zippy and zestful existence in the alphabet.
Letter ‘z’, I love you.
Come on now! Don’t call me crazy. We are all writers here and all have odd obsessions (did you miss that in the job description? It’s a requirement). For the love of words, I know you have a secret passion for a letter. Do you care to share? Comment below if you feel like exposing your secret.
The Sarcastic Muse 
There is no letter z in Sinhalease so my mom’s name is always pronounced “sora” instead of Zora. My favorite letter is S, don’t ask me why.☺
It is hard to explain why we are more drawn to one letter over the others 🙂
I’ll support your passion but from here on out, I want to be know as Zoltan. I always thought that was a cool name.
I hereby dub you as “Zoltan”!
Z is a cool letter but I believe my favorite is A.
A is a good letter too. My name would be lacking without it!
Aaahhhhhhhhhhh…I ENJOYED your post….thank you for the afternoon smiles #HUGS
Glad you enjoyed it 🙂
Never thought about this, a favorite letter? After reading your post, I rather favor the Z. But then, I love handwriting, so probably I’d say I like the whole alphabet! A fun read this morning. Christine
Glad you enjoyed the post, Christine!
I am a equal opportunity letter lover – and along that vein, I will all the letters M and N to sit high upon my shelf of alphabetic superiority, if for no other reason than those stuck in the middle always seem to be forgotten 😉
The middle of the alphabet needs someone to love them too. So you have that area covered! I claim the end.
By the way, turn an ‘N’ on its side and you have a ‘Z’ 😉
Interestingly, Appius Claudius Caecus disliked the letter Z, because he thought that the face people made when pronouncing it resembled a corpse.
You have completely added to my obsession with the letter. I thank you! What a wonderfully macabre image.
I love Y. I don’t why. I just do. When my mind wanders too far away, I sketch it, and I don’t realize till I’m back to the present. It is even in my signature, although it is not in my name.
There is something amazing about the last three letters of the latin alphabet. I can completely relate to the mind wandering when writing you favorite letter.
I have to ask, when you sign your name, where does this mysterious ‘y’ appear?
The P comes out a Y with a small curl on the right arm.