's' or 'z'

[Pete]

Capitalise or capitalize? I always thought s in English and z in American?

[SusanB]

I always write 's' (U.K.) Of course, I could be wrong!

[goofy]

-ize was the form adopted by the OED. But a lot of writers in the UK use -ise instead.

[Alan Palmer]

Yes. The OUP (publisher of the OED, of course) mandates the -ize ending but probably the majority of writers in the UK use -ise.

[Pete]

Jun 16, 2008 16:16:52 GMT Alan Palmer said:

Yes. The OUP (publisher of the OED, of course) mandates the -ize ending but probably the majority of writers in the UK use -ise.

I have noticed that Word frequently defaults to the US English version and shows all UK spellings as typos. This irritates the semi-colons out of me!

[Paul Doherty]

Oxford is -z-, Cambridge is -s-, so it's a boat-race issue. Both have exceptions: even Oxford prefers analyse to analyze.

[Tone]

>I always thought s in English and z in American?<

As many people, wrongly, think.

OED has chosen, rightly, to follow original practice, and the Americans have always stuck with it.

>even Oxford prefers analyse to analyze<

Red herring, Paul (as I'm sure that you know). It's not an across-the-board substitution, just certain (but many) words.

Tone

[goofy]

I'm curious about which was the first form to appear in English: -ise or -ize. I would assume it was -ise, being borrowed from Old French -iser. Later words borrowed directly from Greek and Latin would have -ize, and some of them would have been respelled with -ise. But I don't know if this is true.

[Verbivore]

Pete: Oz has officially settled on the "s" style for ~ise suffixes; vide Macquarie Dictionary and Australian Government Publishing Service Style Manual.

[Verbivore]

Jun 16, 2008 20:31:56 GMT @goofy said:

I'm curious about which was the first form to appear in English: -ise or -ize. I would assume it was -ise, being borrowed from Old French -iser. Later words borrowed directly from Greek and Latin would have -ize, and some of them would have been respelled with -ise. But I don't know if this is true.

Goofy: That's the general idea, but it creates problems for one when the source - or route from the source - is unknown to the writer.

[Dave]

Jun 16, 2008 16:01:11 GMT @goofy said:

-ize was the form adopted by the OED. But a lot of writers in the UK use -ise instead.

Then there's practise, British verb (which I tend to read as if it were -ize), and practice, American verb and noun.

[Tone]

Dave,
>and practice, American verb and noun<

Except, as I've noted before, for your glorious NRA, which uses "practise" as a noun.

Tone

[Pete]

Jun 17, 2008 9:56:16 GMT Dave said:

Jun 16, 2008 16:01:11 GMT @goofy said:

-ize was the form adopted by the OED. But a lot of writers in the UK use -ise instead.

Then there's practise, British verb (which I tend to read as if it were -ize), and practice, American verb and noun.

Yes, there are a number of 'c'/'s' pairings in UK English, such as licence/license, practice/practise, advice/advise, where the 'c' form is the noun and the 's' form is the verb. Advice/advise is unusual in being pronounced differently. And this isn't a universal rule or we would have promice/promise, etc.

[Verbivore]

Isn't there a distinction to be made, in such a discussion, between words containing ~ise / ~ize as part of the basic form and those where ~ise / ~ize (and ~isation / ~ization) are mere suffixes?

[Tone]

>Isn't there a distinction to be made, in such a discussion<

Yes! (Indeed.)

I might endeavour to prise a prize from someone, and I might prize my own ability to prise it if I succeeded.

But, whether I were writing American or English, I would not wish to prize a prise from someone, nor might I prise my own ability if I succeeded.

And:
>are mere suffixes<

Um, if its "index" and "indices", why not "suffices"?

Tone