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Pedants' corner

'z' or 's' - I'm confused or confuzed!

(35 Posts)
ayse Sun 08-Mar-15 08:01:47

Can someone please clarify whether professionalization or professionalisation is the 'British' spelling. The Oxford dictionary tells me 'z' is correct. Same applies to lots of other words ending in ization e.g. modernization etc.

pompa Tue 21-Apr-15 11:51:50

Eureka -- I have sorted it, I had UK English set as my language in Chrome, but had not tagged it to be used for the spell check. smile

pompa Tue 21-Apr-15 11:45:39

This annoys me, my internet spell check is US English, hence color instead of colour etc. I have the system set up as British English, but makes no difference. Very annoying.

Bellanonna Tue 21-Apr-15 11:27:01

Not entirely related but a good way to remember whether stationary or stationery is "e" for envelope.
New to this site. Interesting and amusing!

janerowena Fri 13-Mar-15 14:32:26

Thank you! I wish I had thought of that.

MamaCaz Fri 13-Mar-15 14:14:53

Janerowena: I was in my thirties before I even realized that those words had two different spellings! Then I had trouble remembering whether it was the noun that took 'c' and the verb that took 's', or the other way round. I've got over that now, by remembering that a noun is something that you can usually 'c' (see). It works for me!

janerowena Tue 10-Mar-15 15:32:31

No it's not - not for me! It's my one and only spelling problem.

For a sister, it's 'Said'. She always writes 'Siad'.

granjura Mon 09-Mar-15 14:17:40

Verb with an 's', noun with a 'c'- easy to remember ;)

janerowena Mon 09-Mar-15 12:07:19

Cs and Zs don't confuse me, it's Cs and Ss. Defence, Defense, Practice, Practise.

So from now on, I may start a new trend and use Practize and Defenze. After all, all those sill LOL cats on facebook say things like 'Can I haz cheezeburger?'.

ayse Mon 09-Mar-15 10:41:01

The confuse was just to attract attention. I'll just go on using 's's unless it looks 'wrong' as it sometimes does. Point taken about referencing. My computer set to British English but still underlines when I use an 's'. Oh, well, no easy answer to this!
Thanks all

janerowena Sun 08-Mar-15 22:23:42

Civilisation, civilized - I must have a split personality!

Ariadne Sun 08-Mar-15 22:19:44

Way back in the mists of time, I was taught that z or s depended on whether the word implied instigation of change in the object of the verb...but I cannot remember which is which and don't think it matters.

There is also something to do with the Great Vowel Shift (also from the mists of my education) which had a big influence on English spelling.

So, honestly, does it matter? None of it is to do with Americanization / Americanisation, that's for sure.

absent Sun 08-Mar-15 18:21:34

I think –ize, as in civilize, has been the preferred British spelling for some decades and –ise is the alternative. I seem to remember a complete revision of the style book at the publishers for whom I worked some time in the 1970s because of this. There are, as always, exceptions – advise not advize for example.

Ana Sun 08-Mar-15 18:10:26

In fact I don't think Gransnet has its own spell check, does it?

Ana Sun 08-Mar-15 17:22:24

Me neether!

rosequartz Sun 08-Mar-15 17:21:07

I don't seem to have a spell check on GN (as you may have notised)

jinglbellsfrocks Sun 08-Mar-15 16:04:43

rosequartz/s. grin

Coolgran65 Sun 08-Mar-15 16:01:35

I always change z to s if predictive text throws up the z.
I email quite a bit to the USA so find the kerb/curb - theatre/theater etc. etc. is endless. My son has lived there for 11 years and pretty much spells the USA way.... pretty confusing for him as he is dyslexic.

durhamjen Sun 08-Mar-15 15:16:57

It's the spellcheck on Gransnet that underlines the s. I do not use spellcheck on anything else, but cannot seem to get rid of it on this site.
However, Gransnet is always underlined as well.

Jane10 Sun 08-Mar-15 12:48:02

Set your pc or mob to 'british' English and the 'z's disappear except where they're meant to be eg zoo.

ninathenana Sun 08-Mar-15 12:05:01

If predictive text on my kindle uses z where it's possible to use s I always change to s. I think z looks American.

rosequartz Sun 08-Mar-15 10:09:42

I am sure z was used more when I was a child but now s is more normal

Yours sincerely
Rosequarts

jinglbellsfrocks Sun 08-Mar-15 09:56:05

Yes. They seem to have hung onto the 'z' longer than we have.

TerriBull Sun 08-Mar-15 09:53:36

I also think z or zee, as Americans pronounce it, instead of an s, is very much American English. If I remember rightly from reading Bill Bryson, they sometimes use old English that we have abandoned here. We have quite a few disparities as far as spelling is concerned.

jinglbellsfrocks Sun 08-Mar-15 09:27:42

Oxford Dictionary online It comes from the Latin, confusus, and old French confus.

feetlebaum Sun 08-Mar-15 09:23:56

Is this another of those 'Oxford spell it with a ' ' and Cambridge spell it with a ' '' deals?