What's wrong with you, Zebra

This morning we were working with Zebra. Now, Zebra has this bad habit of A) mumbling everything so people can't understand him and B) not addressing his questions to anyone in particular but simply asking the air and expecting someone to answer. So of course, that's what he did today. We were discussing plans for the day when we heard Zebra say something.

"What," we said.

Zebra, instead of simply raising his voice took about three steps closer and in the same mumbling whisper said, "is it pronounced 'em-blay-zun' or 'em-bluh-zone'?"

Is he kidding? He doesn't seem to be kidding.

Rolling our eyes, we told him in a very flat voice, "it's em-blay-zun."
 
Not catching our sarcasm at all, Zebra went on to say something along the lines of "Yeah, then you'd have people going around asking where the embluh zone was. Ha Ha ha."

We are not amused.