DigitalDuck wrote:Scytale wrote:I sympathize
This isn't a typographical issue, but my personal peeve is when Commonwealthers think that using the suffix "-ize" on the end of words like "realize" etc. is somehow an American introduction into the language and should be avoided for that reason.
While I don't want to get into this subject AGAIN, "-ize" makes more sense because that's how it sounds; the problem comes when there are so many other times an S is used when it's pronounced like a Z that makes it kinda pointless to even worry about.
I use "-ise" because I'm British and that's how it happens to be spelt over here at the moment.
*clears throat*
For wikipedia's take on it,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_spelling
and if you prefer it from the source,
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/03/ize-or-ise/ .
The long and the short of it is "-ize" is as British (edit: if not more so!) as "-ise" (which I believe is the Cambridge convention). Tragically, in Australia they
exclusively prescribe "-ise", which makes
no (edit: some) sense to me, but I can't understand why, other than (perhaps, I don't know) some misplaced belief that "because the Americans use it, it can't be right".
further edit: irritatingly, in the interest of disclosure I did find
this source, which implies that there was a time when "-ise" was
the standard in British English, noting that it came from the French rather than the Greek "-ize", but that the current standard is inclusive of both types. Note that the OED emphasi
zes that the first use of "-ise" was in the 18th century, rather than the first use of "-ize" in the 15th.