Can anyone tell me the particular history of, and current connotations, using the -ise ending or the -ize ending for words? Familiarize vs. familiarise etc.
The question crops up a bit in the use of Australian English, having an English/Irish history, distinct leanings towards US culture and US computer programs that often insist on changing spelling as they see fit (thanks Bill).
I had assumed one was a US English variant and the other was a British spelling, but I have seen them used in ways that suggest the grammatical picture is a little more muddy than this.
Hmm… I would be interested in this too! I also assumed that -ize was the U.S. variant of the -ise ending abundantly used in Britain and its more recent linguistic heirs.
This is probably related to the -ise vs -ize question.
Would anyone be able to shed light on the use of -or and -our, e.g, color vs. colour, neighbor vs neighbour.
I once believed -or was American and -our was used by the rest of the English speaking world, but then I discovered our Australian cousins also spell words -or rather than the expected -our.
[quote author=bmassey link=board=spell;num=1029129237;start=0#2 date=08/13/02 at 22:19:48]
I once believed -or was American and -our was used by the rest of the English speaking world, but then I discovered our Australian cousins also spell words -or rather than the expected -our.
As an Australian cousin, I can confirm that some Australians use the -or spelling, for example the main newspaper in Brisbane, which talks about labor, honor, etc.
But they are very much in the minority. For the most part, the -or spelling is avoided because it is seen as "too American". Meanwhile, people continue to drink coke, watch Ally McBeal and lap up Julia Roberts movies…
When I attended university I was a member of the student press. We were told the CP (Canadian Press) Style Book standard was to follow American spelling, so as not to require stories to be reedited if they were picked up off the news wire. We thought this was yet another example of the world dominance of the American media, at the expense of local culture. The real reason, we student journalists deduced, in favour of US spelling was so Canadian journalists would be more likely to have their work picked up by the American media, giving them greater exposure and perhaps a foot into the more lucrative US market.
Fortunately, the CP Style Book has taken an about face, and now promotes Canadian (British for the most part) spelling.
I wonder if this is the same case for the Australian media? What is the Australian Press standard for spelling? I believe the arguement for not having to reedit stories off the newswire holds even less water in Australia than it did in Canada.
As far as I understand the issue, British English encompasses both the -ise and -ize forms. The -ise form seems to be most commonly used and I, for one, prefer it.
If I remember correctly, the advice of Fowler (Modern English Usage - well worth a read!) recommends -ize as a standard. Nobody’s perfect.
As far as I understand the issue, British English encompasses both the -ise and -ize forms.
The Oxford English Dictionary used to use -ize exclusively, but now allows -ise as an option. In fact, there’s an episode of "Inspector Morse", in which Morse, the arch-pedant, chastises Lewis for using -ise instead of -ize, quoting the OED as his authority. ("Chastise", though, is one of the short list of -ise words that can’t be spelled with an -ize.)
A surprising number of UK publishers still use -ize, but the number seems to be dwindling, perhaps under the malign influence of Bill Gates and has "spell-checker" (now there’s a compound that should have been strangled in its cradle), which forces -ise as the only acceptable option in UK English.
The verbs that can’t take -ize are given in Burchfield’s new edition of Fowler as: advertise advise apprise arise chastise circumcise comprise demise despise devise disenfranchise disguise enfranchise enterprise excise exercise franchise improvise incise merchandise prise revise supervise surprise televise
but the current OED is also happy with the verb "prize", and my American English spell-checker is happy with all of them except "prise".
I think most of these obligate -ise words have come to us via French (which doesn’t use "z"), rather than directly from Latin -izare or Greek -zein suffixes.
But "televise", I guess, just keeps its "s" because of its back-formation from "television".
It’s been my experience that the average American reader won’t stop and gaze in wonder at ‘-our’ rather than ‘-or’; they’re used fairly interchangeably, since they are, well, interchangeable, though the preference is for ‘-or’. This is just one of the many examples of the differences between British and American spelling, but almost of all them originate not from natural language drift, but from a conscious movement during the 1800’s for orthographic reform in America. Looking back at some of these words makes me cringe, while others look perfectly natural, so I suppose I oughtn’t criticize British spelling as unphonetic…it makes me cringe as much when I see spellings like ‘iz’ and ‘wuz’, so I don’t have the moral higher ground ;D
In my experience publishing articles in the Canadian Journal of Forest Research, they insist on being consistent: use either -ise or -ize but not both in the same article. However, US Journals (Forest Science, for example) insist on US spelling -ize and -or. These are not "typical" media, but they give you an idea of the requirements in each place. Most media in Australia use -ise and -our.
[quote author=uncronopio link=board=spell;num=1029129237;start=0#8 date=12/05/02 at 20:31:24]In my experience publishing articles in the Canadian Journal of Forest Research . . .
Canadian media have a tough time. Canadian spelling prefers -our and ize, a blend of US and UK spelling. Yet because Canadian newspapers feed into AP (the US-based Associated Press) via CP (Canadian Press, a co-op), they long ago adopted American spelling conventions. The Globe and Mail, Canada’s newspaper of record, some years ago decided to ‘honour’ Canadian spelling conventions - which means they must have installed a computer utility to adjust the spelling when their articles go to AP. Smaller Canadian publications just try to get by . . .
