zaterdag 3 februari 2018

Sunday Stamps: 'Z' is for zee, zeeschelp and zwemmen

We made it! In 26 weeks the owner of Sunday Stamps posted stamps of all 26 letters from the alphabet, and she made us - Sunday Stamps and Mail Lovers - do the same! Congratulations to all, and many thanks to Violet, thank you for hosting Sunday Stamps so carefully!

So, the last letter of the alphabet is 'Z'. In English pronounced as 'zea', in Dutch we name this letter 'zet'.

The first stamp I want to share with you is about the zee, sea in English. Zee is pronounced as [zey] or [zay] like in 'hey' and 'hay' (is there any difference in pronounciation between hey and hay? - I don't hear it!..).
And the letter Z is not only for zee, but also Zeeland, literally 'sea-land', which is the name of the province in the zuidwesten - south west - of the Netherlands. The country New Zealand is named after this province.



Last week this province was in the news and some historical movies were shown on television, because of a sad anniversary: in the night of 31 January - 1 February 1953 the North Sea Flood took place, and this flood took the lives of many victims.
This was the start of a dike protection plan, the so-called Deltaplan, to construct the Deltawerken (Delta Works). The construction took many years, and finally, in 1986 the main parts of the Deltawerken were finished. This stamp has been issued in 1986 in honour of the Deltawerken. The text says 'Deltawerken voltooid' ('Delta works completed') but in fact it was the main parts which were finished, and in 1986 the Oosterscheldekering was inaugurated. Finally, after more than 40 years of construction, in 1997 the last part of the Deltawerken was completed (which does not mean the end of all construction works: nowadays one has to maintain it!).
So, on this 1986 stamp you can see a part of the zee, a part of Zeeland and the forementioned part of the Deltawerken.

The province Zeeland is famous for the mussel cultivation (including selling / eating). I couldn't find a stamp showing a mussel, but today that is no problem as 'mossel' doesn't start with a 'z'. But fortunately I found a look-a-like, which at least is a zeeschelp - a sea shell, on this pretty stamp bwhich Eva has sent to me from Morocco:



One activity we can do in the zee is zwemmen (to swim). You also can do it in a zwembad (swimming pool), and some people make a match of it - zwemsport (swimming sports).
Coincidentally this 'chaincard' arrived back to me recently, after having been traveling to Thailand, Taiwan and Russia, where kind stamp lovers added stamps showing zwemmers (swimmers) to my card (and I added the Dutch zwemsport stamps to theirs). This is the result:



See what other 'Z' themed stamps others have found at and via today's Sunday Stamps!

12 opmerkingen:

  1. I see I have been disseminating the Moroccan fishes around the globe in the form of stamps... :)

    Anything connected to the zee, I love it!

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    1. Glad you enjoy it! And thank you for your sea/zee animal stamps!

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  2. Great collection of Zs today. And yes, hey and hay sound exactly the same.

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    1. Thank you, FinnBadger, good to know that they sound similar.

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  3. Superb stamp of the rage of the water calmed by Dutch engineering.

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    1. Thank you, Joy!
      Alss the wayer rage caused a disaster first before they started this ingenious engineering work. And the engineers still are busy, thinking how to manage the rising sea level in the coming decades / century.

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  4. smart thinking...again. I have always had this impression though that a whole lot more words in Dutch start with a Z compared to English...

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    1. I didn't think of that before, but now I realize you might be right!

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  5. I was reading about this flood anniversary. What a long time it has taken to finish this Deltawerken.

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    1. Sure it took a lot of time. And I can imagine that it is a lot of work, the province Zeeland exists of several islands, so the water 'line' is long.

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  6. I was taught that Z is 'zed' although I have heard others at 'zea'. The Deltawerken is a great engineering feat and rightly appears on a Dutch stamp.

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    1. Good to know - maybe there.is a difference between the several English speaking countries? Or even local varieties?
      I learned 'English-English' at school, and I vaguely remember having learned the last letter of the alphabet i pronounced as zea. But maybe American English is different, and am.curious to know what Australian and Canadian native speakers say :-)

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