Start Z revolution

The English language is like a can of SpaghettiOs, the kind with alphabet-shaped pasta. Picture a freshly opened can full of red goo and pasty pasta letters. But be careful not to cut your finger on the side of the can.\nForget this analogy. It’s too dangerous. Let’s start over. The English language is like a 26-member vaudeville act. The more popular letters like N and T and all the vowels put on the headlining show, forming colorful, acrobatic, musical words and phrases. But the most talented member of the act is stuck as the stage manager, bringing towels to the guy who rides the tiny bicycle. What is this underappreciated letter?\nIt comes last in the alphabet, but should be first in our hearts.\nThe letter Z deserves more action. You have to go through 25 boring letters of the alphabet to get to the sexiest one.\nI don’t know much about the English language. Who decided to put Z last? The Greeks? The Egyptians? The president? A colony of teeny-tiny alphabet gnomes? I don’t know.\nWhat I do know, is that the Z should no longer be oppressed. The term “catching some Zs,” as a euphemism for sleeping, never made much sense to me. But the image of catching the elusive Z, as if it were a butterfly lightly drifting away from your net, plays upon the Z’s natural grace. Just look at it. It’s a beautiful zigzag – three simple zagging lines.\nUp until zigzag, none of the words in this column were spelled with a Z. What a one-way ticket to Snoozeville. There we go, Z-friendly words like Snoozeville, zigzag and zig-zaggy should be used more often. But Snoozeville and zig-zaggy aren’t actually real words. Words have to be made up to get Z some play time in the word game. That doesn’t seem fair.\nSpeaking of unfair, look at how selfish X steals the spotlight from Z by using its signature zippy Z sound in words like xylophone and xenon.\nMore Zs would spice up the communication process. How do we get more Zs? Snoop Dogg made a commendable attempt circa 2002 with phrases like “fo shizzle.” Though comical, the insertion of Zs into the middle of words was an abuse of the Z. The overuse of this inserted Z speak turned Z into a fad that many wanted to abolish.\nTo get Z some respectable attention, we have to push another letter out of the way. S, I’m looking in your direction.\nI’m going to ignore the small camp of people who want to replace the letter S with the dollar sign and say we should replace S with Z. What is S anyway? It’s just a backwards wannabe Z that has clearly let itself go with those sagging, curvy lines.\nJust think about the “Sssssss” sound. It usually comes from a snake or a punctured tire. And those things are usually bad. \nJuzt ztart uzing the Z whenever you can. The letter Z is not just for zebras, Zorro and ZZ Top. It’s for all of us.