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How to know which word in British English ends with '-ise' or '-ize' (e.g. organise and realize)? I am an editor and this has been a constant matter of confusion for me.

Krishanu Dutta
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    It would help if you were able to set your word processor to UK rather than American English. – Ronald Sole Jun 15 '17 at 10:49
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    Nowadays, "-ize" is usually American English spelling. Dictionaries tend to point out the different spellings, e.g. finalize vs finalise – Mari-Lou A Jun 15 '17 at 10:58
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    Yes, the short answer is a dictionary when you're not confident. – Dan Bron Jun 15 '17 at 11:01
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    British English is an ill-defined term, though this ODO article uses it and may well be helpful. This article points out that many Brits choose -ize variants. 'Correctness' where both spellings are widely used is hardly the correct term to use; does a prescriptivist retain 'the other spelling' in verbatim quotes, for instance? But this is a duplicate question. – Edwin Ashworth Jun 15 '17 at 11:32
  • I did not mark this post as a duplicate, the question lacked any research or effort on behalf of the user. Moreover, the OP is not asking WHY but "HOW". The Older question talks about Greek roots, which is related but does not help this OP. – Mari-Lou A Jun 15 '17 at 12:21
  • @Mari-Lou A 'Has an answer there / probably the best answer you're going to get apart from the instruction "You have to laboriously check each word in a good dictionary", which isn't suitable on ELU' needs a lot more effort from those trying to keep the site credible without spending most of their lives doing so. Please interpret the 'duplicate' CV reason accordingly in future. I often replace 'Is a duplicate of' with 'has an answer at'. – Edwin Ashworth Jun 15 '17 at 12:35
  • @EdwinAshworth don't tell me how I should interpret duplicate questions in the future as if I'm somebody who's new to this. The older question is related but does not answer "how", which is ... look the words up in the dictionary one by one until you are familiar with their spellings. Telling an OP that they need to look up the etymology of each word doesn't quite cut the mustard, and I fail to see how this can possibly be a guideline for future visitors. Need I remind you that I cast my vote to close the question because it lacked any research or effort. I stand by it. – Mari-Lou A Jun 15 '17 at 12:42
  • @ Mari-Lou A Perhaps the other close-voters will explain why they were content to use the 'duplicate' CV-reason here. Though the question at the question voted a duplicate / original 'Is there any rule to this?' (addressing both 'BrE' and 'AmE' practices) might well be seen by many as very largely equivalent to 'How to know which word in British English ends with '-ise' or '-ize' '. / Your CV reason is totally proper. Have you raised the issue of misidentification with other C-Voters on Meta? – Edwin Ashworth Jun 15 '17 at 12:57

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I think the key is consistency here. If you use ‘organise’, you should stick to ‘realise’. If you are the editor, you set the rules, and you do not have to conform to others’ style sheets (eg, Oxford University Press and Nature enforce the ‘-ize’ spelling in words ending in ‘-ise’).

The root of the matter is that the ‘-ise’ suffix originates in the Greek word ending -ιζειν, and conservative publishers try to stick to the ζ (z in the Latin alphabet) to reflect the word origin, instead of the ‘s’ spelling, which was introduced by the French.

Exceptions: ‘-yse’ endings are always spelt with ‘s’ in British: ‘analyse’, ‘paralyse’ (whilst *‘analyze’ and *‘paralyze’ are only valid in the US); and also there are certain words unrelated to the Greek -ιζειν ending: ‘size’, ‘capsize’, ‘advertise’ and ‘merchandise’ (the latter both as a noun and as a verb).

tethered.sun
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