@TobyC : Nice try - it's spelt 'realised'
-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization)[edit]
See also:
Oxford spelling
Origin and recommendations[edit]
The -ize spelling is often incorrectly seen as an Americanism in Britain. It has been in use since the 15th century, predating -ise by over a century.[51] -ize comes directly from Greek -ιζειν -izein and Latin -izāre, while -ise comes via French -iser.[52][53] The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) recommends -ize and lists the -ise form as an alternative.[53]
Publications by Oxford University Press (OUP)—such as Henry Watson Fowler's A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, Hart's Rules,[54] and The Oxford Guide to English Usage[55]—also recommend -ize. However, Robert Allan's
Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage considers either spelling to be acceptable anywhere but the US.
[56] Also, Oxford University itself does not agree with the OUP and advocates
-ise instead of
-ize in its staff style guide.
[57]
American spelling avoids
-ise endings in words like
organize,
realize and
recognize.
[58]
British spelling mostly uses
-ise (
organise,
realise,
recognise), though
-ize is sometimes used.
[58] The ratio between
-ise and
-ize stood at 3:2 in the
British National Corpus up to 2002.
[59] The spelling
-ise is more commonly used in UK mass media and newspapers,
[58] including
The Times (which switched conventions in 1992),
[60] The Daily Telegraph,
The Economist and the
BBC. The
Government of the United Kingdom additionally uses
-ise, stating "do not use Americanisms" justifying that the spelling "is often seen as such".
[61] The
-ize form is known as
Oxford spelling and is used in publications of the Oxford University Press, most notably the
Oxford English Dictionary, and of other academic publishers
[62] such as
Nature, the
Biochemical Journal and
The Times Literary Supplement. It can be identified using the
IETF language tag en-GB-oxendict (or, historically, by
en-GB-oed).
[63]
In Canada, the
-ize ending is more common, whereas in Ireland, India, Australia, and New Zealand,
[64] -ise spellings strongly prevail: the
-ise form is preferred in Australian English at a ratio of about 3:1 according to the
Macquarie Dictionary.
The same applies to derivatives and
inflections such as
colonisation/
colonization, or
modernisation/
modernization.
Worldwide,
-ize endings prevail in scientific writing and are commonly used by many international organizations, such as the
United Nations Organizations (such as the
World Health Organization and the
International Civil Aviation Organization) and the
International Organization for Standardization (but not by the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). The
European Union's style guides require the usage of -
ise.
[65] Proofreaders at the EU's Publications Office ensure consistent spelling in official publications such as the
Official Journal of the European Union (where legislation and other official documents are published), but the
-ize spelling may be found in other documents.
Exceptions[edit]
Some verbs ending in
-ize or
-ise do not come from Greek
-ιζειν, and their endings are therefore
not interchangeable:
- Some words take only the -z- form worldwide, for example capsize, seize (except in the legal phrases to be seised of or to stand seised to), size and prize (only in the sense of winning, not as forcing open with a lever). These, however, do not contain the suffix -ize.
- Others take only -s- worldwide: advertise, advise, arise, chastise, circumcise, comprise, compromise, demise, despise, devise, disguise, excise, exercise, franchise, guise, improvise, incise, reprise, revise, rise, supervise, surmise, surprise, televise, and wise. Some of these do not contain the suffix -ise, but some do.
- One special case is the verb to prise (meaning "to force" or "to lever"), which is spelled prize in the US[66] and prise everywhere else,[67] including Canada,[12] although in North American English it is almost always replaced by pry, a back-formation from or alteration of prise, to avoid confusion with the more common meaning of the word "prize".[12] A topsail schooner built in Australia in 1829 was called Enterprize, whereas there have been US ships and spacecraft named "Enterprise".
Some words spelled with
-ize in American English are
not used in British English, etc., e.g., the verb
burglarize, regularly formed on the noun
burglar, where the equivalent in British, and other versions of English, is the
back-formation burgle and not
burglarise.
[68]
-yse, -yze[edit]
The ending
-yse is British and
-yze is American. Thus, in British English
analyse,
catalyse,
hydrolyse and
paralyse, but in American English
analyze,
catalyze,
hydrolyze and
paralyze.
Analyse was the more common spelling in 17th- and 18th-century English. Some dictionaries of the time however preferred
analyze, such as
John Kersey's of 1702,
Nathan Bailey's of 1721 and
Samuel Johnson's of 1755. In Canada,
-yze is preferred, but
-yse is also very common. In South Africa, Australia and New Zealand,
-yse is the prevailing form.
English verbs ending in either
-lyse or
-lyze are not similar to the original Greek verb, which is
λύω lýo ("I release"). Instead, they come from the noun form
λύσις lysis, with the
-ise or
-ize suffix. For example,
analyse comes from French
analyser, formed by
haplology from the French
analysiser,
[69] which would be spelled
analysise or
analysize in English.
Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford states: "In verbs such as analyse, catalyse, paralyse,
-lys- is part of the Greek stem (corresponding to the element
-lusis) and not a suffix like
-ize. The spelling
-yze is therefore etymologically incorrect, and must not be used, unless American printing style is being followed."
[54]