For example, switching out the word ‘boot’ for ‘trunk’, or ditching the word ‘rubbish’ for ‘garbage’.
This is something I’ve noticed my 6 year old does pretty regularly. We went through a stage where ‘sweets’ became ‘candy’, ‘holiday’ became ‘vacation’ and ‘courgette’ became ‘zucchini’.
That last one didn’t happen but if you’re still reading you’ve got my respect, or as the Americans might say ‘…mad props’.
You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard an American say “Gen Z” before, and it literally never occured to me that they were pronouncing it “Gen Zee”. Obvious now you mention it, but I’ve just been assuming that every time I see it written down it’s “Gen Zed” by default.
My friends were the opposite, they accepted that Z is pronounced Zed, but they said that gen zee was different, because “it’s like ZZ Top”. I argued back that it’s not like ZZ Top, it’s just a letter assigned to a generation. They were so used to hearing it said by Americans on TikTok, they refused to even accept that a normal person would say gen zed. “It’s just gen zee though! Nobody says gen zed!”. I’m angry again thinking about it!
I’d argue it’s a proper noun which happens to be a letter long rather than a letter assigned to a generation
That said I believe the correct term is Zoomer which resolves this issue