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Comment by EGreg | Hacker News Reader

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EGreg·

I always thought Oz was a reference to Australia. How did Aus come to be called Oz, the land down under?

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"Oz-tray-lee-ah"

Edited to reflect a pronunciation, not necessarily a correct or accurate one, from which it's easy to derive 'oz'.

Nobody says it with a z sound, always an s.

...and nobody says "oz" when they mean to say "ounce". These are literal liberties, which fit either way, I think.

They do say it with a /z/ sound. That's why it gets spelled Oz.

Compare Aussie, which is also pronounced with a /z/.

I've never heard anyone pronounce 'Australia' as 'Auztralia'. 'Aussie' as 'ozzie' yes, but never Australia.

Voicing s as /z/ is widely variational. For example, I voice the s in "us", and "Muslim", while others don't. While I don't voice the s in Australia (/ɒ.ˈstreɪ̯.li.jə/ ~ /ə.ˈstreɪ̯.li.jə/), I do in Oslo (pronouncing it /ˈɒz.loʊ̯/).

Pronouncing 'Oslo' with a z sound doesn't mean 'Australia' is pronounced with a z sound, you're comparing the... you know, I don't care.

They actually pronounce it “straya”.

It's almost impossible to produce "oz-tr" because the t is unvoiced. But as I mention sidethread, the term for a person, Aussie, is pronounced with a /z/, and the Oz pronunciation is probably related to that.

I'm not sure where exactly I heard this, but some time when I was young, I either was told or read somewhere that the author came up with the name "Oz" when looking at a filing cabinet; the top was labeled "A-N", and the bottom was labeled "O-Z"

Because oz sounds like "aus"

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