Why does zzz stand for sleep

The letter has a long historical association with slumber, surprisingly. Sleep and snoring became virtually interchangeable in the language of comics and a new standard had been agreed upon. And just why did they choose this letter in the first place? Here it becomes more revealing to simply speculate, as one unifying answer has been lost to time. And just for fun, imagine a sawing motion. Another popular term for sleep is a snooze.

All you have to do is look at another language. Dogs in English go woof , but in German they go wau wau , in Turkish hev hev , and in Italian bau bau. The problem comes down to the Latin alphabet being designed explicitly to capture human noises.

Onomatopoeia is a contentious issue in linguistics for many of the above reasons. One of the factors important to language — at least according to some — is that vocabulary is arbitrary. That means the words we choose to describe an object have no basis in what the object is. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Still, other linguists would say that this is in itself arbitrary and humans are hearing what they choose to hear.

The great thing about written language is that it provides a history of terms. The Washington City Paper did a thorough job searching for the first instance of Z being used for sleep. The author of the piece, Cecil Adams, quickly realized that there was something that all of these early instances of zzz had in common: comics.

Hugo Hugo The explanation was really good. Tony Balmforth Tony Balmforth 3, 11 11 silver badges 19 19 bronze badges. Lee Shapiro Lee Shapiro 59 1 1 silver badge 1 1 bronze badge. According to Wikipedia : Zzz or zzzz is used in writing to represent the act of sleeping. Zzzzz seems to more closely match the sound of a buzzing fly, IMO, but I get it. Do you have any insight on to when it was first used? Scott Mitchell: The only thing I've found after 30 minutes.

I'm not convinced this very pat explanation is sufficient. The person who added [citation needed] to the Wikipedia article agrees. I've never heard any snoring that sounds like [zzzz]. The sound requires conscious tongue positioning and vocal cord vibration to produce, which is difficult to do while unconscious.

Epic I tell you. It is more like "snnCHHhkkkk,,,phsawwww" : — horatio. Show 5 more comments. Matthew: the brain wave is particular important when people refers to sleep.

It's a matter of perspective, I guess. Of the dozen or so clinical uses in the Wikipedia article you linked to, sleep isn't even listed. But it's fine, I don't need to convince you, I just wanted to point out that "people send out brain waves when they are sleeping" makes it sound like EEG activity only happens when you're sleeping; the fact is that it happens all the time.

I think what he's saying is that brain electrical activity is pretty much the only activity during sleep. Hence the electrical symbol lightning strike which resembles and is substituted with is Z. Like dreams happening due to electrical brain activity.

When I first saw Zzzz in cartoons I was a child, with no english knowledge. It's the shape rather then the sound, that I could associate it with sleep. I think it's the shape took the most important place to make Zzzz be world-wide accepted. However, Una was unable to find any German uses before That raised the question of how snoring is represented in other cultures. Una discovered the following:. Too much to remember? Z, like so many other effusions of American pop culture, is in common use worldwide.

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