Don't rely on Microsoft. You might like to read a more reliable authority such as Fowler's Modern English usage.
While it is true that in AmE -ize rather than -ise is the norm, that doesn't make -ize 'American' spelling. In BrE both are in use and -ise is more prevalent but some people (pedants?) argue that in most cases the -ize spelling is more authentic in light of the word's etymology.
In actual fact you are free to spell most words either way but just be prepared for the pedant's objection based on etymology: http://www.metadyne.co.uk/ize.html
Interestingly the Oxford University Press traditionally preferred the -ize spelling while the Cambridge University Press traditionally preferred the -ise spelling.
Note, however, that there are some words which can ONLY be spelled -se in BrE (eg advertise, surmise, surprise). If you write these with a -z you're wrong and any objections to such spelling are not pedantic.
I thought a preference for '-ise' in almost all cases was an Australian distinctive (British English is mixed and US uses '-ize' is almost all cases). I could be wrong. Can't remember where I heard this.
Further on what TP thinks and I therefore believe, I'm told that 'z' is a perfectly good letter which gets less use than it used to because the English in the 19th century were going through a Francophile period in their spelling and decided to modernize, as they saw it.
8 comments:
I always thought 'ize' was American spelling. That's what Microsoft Word spelling says (the true arbiter of the English language).
JRS
Don't rely on Microsoft. You might like to read a more reliable authority such as Fowler's Modern English usage.
While it is true that in AmE -ize rather than -ise is the norm, that doesn't make -ize 'American' spelling. In BrE both are in use and -ise is more prevalent but some people (pedants?) argue that in most cases the -ize spelling is more authentic in light of the word's etymology.
In actual fact you are free to spell most words either way but just be prepared for the pedant's objection based on etymology: http://www.metadyne.co.uk/ize.html
Interestingly the Oxford University Press traditionally preferred the -ize spelling while the Cambridge University Press traditionally preferred the -ise spelling.
Note, however, that there are some words which can ONLY be spelled -se in BrE (eg advertise, surmise, surprise). If you write these with a -z you're wrong and any objections to such spelling are not pedantic.
Here's the reference to Fowler (1st edn).
http://books.google.com/books?id=Z4HI0RQIDK0C&pg=PA806&dq=fowler+modern+english+usage+ise&sig=O4VeTyMyLuVfKAGwGgUJDlNhF2o
TP says that -ize is derived from Greek which is why we use it. Personally I prefer -ise.
I thought that words with Latin roots use -ise, while words with Greek roots use -ize (like baptize).
I thought a preference for '-ise' in almost all cases was an Australian distinctive (British English is mixed and US uses '-ize' is almost all cases). I could be wrong. Can't remember where I heard this.
Since then, it's always given me a small tingle of patriotism every time I type it.
Further on what TP thinks and I therefore believe, I'm told that 'z' is a perfectly good letter which gets less use than it used to because the English in the 19th century were going through a Francophile period in their spelling and decided to modernize, as they saw it.
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