RE: Same language, two locales

From: John Cowan (cowan@locke.ccil.org)
Date: Sun Sep 03 2000 - 21:45:52 EDT


On Sun, 3 Sep 2000, Alistair Vining wrote:

> Except that the Oxford dictionaries (and hence many UK users) have gone over
> to -ize spellings, so you have to learn to ignore the false negatives and
> search for the false positives...

In this case it is the Americans and the Oxonians who preserve the
traditional spelling of English words derived from Greek words in "-izein".
The change "-ize" > "-ise" (doubtless by analogy with non-Greek words
in "-ise" such as "advertise") is a 19th-century innovation.

-- 
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
"[O]n the whole I'd rather make love than shoot guns [...]"
	--Eric Raymond



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