| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | ize vs. ise 投稿者: Richard Hill
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Jessie LN 
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| not as clear cut as I thought | Jan 26, 2013 |
I moved between US and UK school systems a couple of times while growing up and had to adapt my spelling each time - "-ise" in the UK and "-ize" in the US (plus the other spelling differences as well). This was mandated by teachers.
Unless a client specified otherwise, I'd stick to that for my translations/localisations (note lack of 'z'...).
I always assumed it was fairly clear cut but apparently not!
| | | | | Don't think it's a major sociopolitical struggle in 2013... | Jan 26, 2013 |
Alexander C. Thomson wrote:
So, the migration to 's' in British English has to do with postwar insecurity in society, coupled with the fact that knowledge of Greek disappeared from the British middle classes in the same era, leaving them with the feeling that what is correct in French
You seem to be framing the choice of -ise/-ize as some kind of sociopolitical struggle. I suppose there may have been an element of truth in this at one point-- as with many prescriptive language rules-- but nowadays for most people I suspect that it's just an arbitrary preference or a habit that they've "never really thought about that much".
I still say the "Greek" argument is absurd. In deciding how to write a word in English in 2013, why on earth should we care what letter was used millennia ago in a to-all-intents-and-purposes unrelated language that used a different alphabet anyway? And if we did decide to care, what's so special about the "z" compared with all the other letters in the word? And what's so special about the way the word was written during the period that we arbitrarily label "Ancient Greek" as opposed to any other arbitrary point in time during the evolution of the word and suffix in question that we could arbitrarily choose to draw on? As I say, the whole argument is absurd when you actually sit down and think about it.
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I learnt that ize was American and that you could choose ise or ize in British English.
Then came Word and its spell check that seems to think that Brits only use ise, whereas I had always preferred ize, in a spirit of "let's take the spelling most people won't balk at".
For words like "practise", I learnt that you had to follow "advise", which does at least have the decency to change its pronunciation when you turn it into a noun.
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Neil Coffey wrote:
I still say the "Greek" argument is absurd. In deciding how to write a word in English in 2013, why on earth should we care what letter was used millennia ago in a to-all-intents-and-purposes unrelated language that used a different alphabet anyway? And if we did decide to care, what's so special about the "z" compared with all the other letters in the word? And what's so special about the way the word was written during the period that we arbitrarily label "Ancient Greek" as opposed to any other arbitrary point in time during the evolution of the word and suffix in question that we could arbitrarily choose to draw on? As I say, the whole argument is absurd when you actually sit down and think about it.
I agree to an extent. I don't think there is much rhyme or reason to it [in revering Greek to a point where you would honour the origin of a word in its spelling]. There again, people aren't very logical creatures. I choose to honour the etymology in preferring the -ize, perhaps because I think zed is a much underused letter in English, or perhaps because I'm quite fond of the Greek language and this is my nod to it.
(Again, this is in my own usage, work-wise I'm open to the customer's wishes, if specified).
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| Nothing wrong with opinions... | Jan 27, 2013 |
Ty Kendall wrote:
There again, people aren't very logical creatures. I choose to honour the etymology in preferring the -ize, perhaps because I think zed is a much underused letter in English, or perhaps because I'm quite fond of the Greek language and this is my nod to it.
So I would agree with that sentiment -- not everything has to be logical. It's perfectly fine to arbitrarily prefer a particular form on aesthetic grounds.
However, what I see no reason for is pretending that there is logic behind a choice when there is none.
| | | | | Not very logical but not entirely arbitrary, either | Jan 27, 2013 |
Neil Coffey wrote:
However, what I see no reason for is pretending that there is logic behind a choice when there is none.
There is some logic behind this choice but it's not always very sound.
Take "analyse/analyze". Since the word derives from the aorist stem of the Greek verb λύω, it has nothing to do with the -ίζω suffix even though it sounds as if it does. Spelling in some parts of the Anglosphere reflects this, as the OED says, noting that the word is probably a back-formation from (i.e. somebody's dodgy guess at the etymology of) "analysis".
Spelling isn't an exact science, of course. When our friend entered English around 1600, it was spelled in a variety of ways. The earliest form the OED records is "analuze" but "analise", "analyse", "analize" and then "analyze" are all recorded around that time or soon afterwards.
You pays your money and you takes your choice.
It's great fun to root around in dictionaries but it's not terribly remunerative when customers want to get in on the act. That's when a default style guide can be a life saver.
[Edited at 2013-01-27 10:50 GMT]
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