Why are there almost no words in English containing the letter combination “zh”, despite the fact that that the sound is quite common, e.g. “measure”?

Question

Why are there almost no words in English containing the letter combination “zh”, despite the fact that that the sound is quite common, e.g. “measure”?

In: 2657

Answer 1

I always thought it was because a bunch of English virgins got together in the 16th Century & stopped kissing their fists long enough to write down rules of spelling, then English printers in the 18th Century bought their type sets from France because they were too cheap have them made right, & it’s how we lost the letter þorn to the vastly inferior French consonant compound of ‘th’.