A quibble on Engl. _zap_

[CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU]

In saying some eminently sensible things, Larry managed to pick first _pizza_
and then _zap_ as examples of words which might be ancient in English but
aren't.

But _zap_ is no more possible than _pizza_, since OE (a) had no phoneme /z/ and
(b) did not use <z> in writing English words.  Medially, [z] was common but is
written <s>, as befits an allophone of /s/.

BTW, was there an "OE Bible" (as opposed to translations of individual books)
in which a **zapian or **sapian might have occurred?

Leo

Leo A. Connolly                         Foreign Languages & Literatures
connolly at memphis.edu                    University of Memphis