And while we're having another tour of British/American spelling... '-ize' and '-ization' are not 'American spellings', despite what many British people may have been told by their primary school teachers. (All that follows can be found in the Oxford English Dictionary - I didn't make it up.)
Back in the days (around 1600) when printing was gaining ground, and spelling was becoming standardized rather than a matter of personal choice, it was normal to use the 'z', standing as it did/does for the noise pronounced when speaking those words. The few writers among the settlers who went to America took this with them, and it continues in use there. It also continued in use in the UK, in the few institutions using written English at the time - the old universities, the church and the law. (Literacy was comparatively rare.)
Somewhat later, seizing a marketing opportunity, people in the UK started up newspapers aimed at the masses only then being encouraged to learn to read. This coincided with there being an influence on the language from French, where there are a lot of words derived from Latin which use '-ise' and '-isation', not originally having a letter 'z', and the new publishers, not being part of the old learned group, latched onto that spelling with 's', so people who were the first readers of their family picked that up.
So within the UK, there were then (and are still) two streams of spelling on this point - the original one with 'z' coming down from the old universities (which you're likely to get drilled into you if you study in one of them, if you turn up not doing it), and the newer one with 's' coming from the first popular culture. They're both right. Again, despite what your primary teacher may have told you, there are huge numbers of possible correct variations in English spelling. If you write for publication in English, you get to know that different publishers have a preferred 'house style' covering various choices, and you have to alter your stuff to fit, regardless of what you naturally do depending on what you first learnt.
NZ vs US vs British English: -ize, -ise
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Originally Posted by Chiba
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