[Vwoolf] ize and ise
Jeremy Hawthorn
jeremy.hawthorn at ntnu.no
Mon Mar 5 14:27:22 EST 2018
Publishers are increasingly international, and so prefer spellings that
are common to both the US and the UK (and its old colonies). But some
words cannot take the ize or yze ending in UK English. I once had a copy
editor for a UK publisher change analyse and its compounds to analyze
etc - which is not acceptable in UK English. For a list of the words
that cannot take a z in UK English, see
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/spelling/ize-ise-or-yse
As Shakespeare had it, thou zed, thou unnecessary letter (or something
like that). An English friend of mine, by the way, was mystified when
driving in the US, by all the signs reading EZ on, EZ off. "E zed on -
what the hell does that mean?"
Jeremy
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