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What is with words that have forms that end both in -zation and -sation, such as localization and localisation?

Many spell checkers recommend -zation.

RegDwigнt
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pramodc84
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    The question was already answered, but for further details, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences#-ise.2C_-ize_.28-isation.2C_-ization.29 – Jonik Aug 13 '10 at 11:27

7 Answers7

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The "z" is American, the "s" is British. As an American I always use "z" for these words, and apparently many UK spellcheckers do not mark it as wrong and the Oxford English dictionary even gives "organization" as the first spelling, saying (also organisation).

Yet my (US English) Firefox marks the "organisation" variant as misspelled and suggests "organization".

My advice: unless you are writing under guidelines that suggest otherwise, use the "z" form for these words.

Edward Tanguay
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  • None of my English teachers would ever have been happy with the "organization" spelling. Perhaps you are looking at an American version of the OED? – Noldorin Aug 13 '10 at 11:18
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    Whenever I've marked essays, I've always been perfectly happy with "color"/"colour", "organization"/"organisation". It annoys me that spellcheckers mark the latter spellings of each word as incorrect, and I always change my spellchecker language to British English, just so it covers both. – Vincent McNabb Aug 13 '10 at 11:26
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    True. As long as usage is consistent, there's usually no problem either way. – Noldorin Aug 13 '10 at 11:30
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    @Noldorin: The Oxford University Press, and thus the OED -- and other, more practical, dictionaries they publish -- prefers -ize in all cases where -ise is not required (e.g. as in "arise"). Cambridge University Press, and most of the rest of UK publishing, prefers -ise. See "Fowler's Modern English Usage" for more details (under "-ize, -ise"). This is not just a UK vs US, but how you weight the Greek origin vs. French intermediates in the etymology. Wikipedia has a decent summary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-ize#-ise.2C_-ize_.28-isation.2C_-ization.29 – Richard Aug 13 '10 at 12:43
  • @Richard: Yeah, it's clearly a very complicated issue, more so than I thought. As I said, as long as you stick to one version consistently, you should be fine. – Noldorin Aug 13 '10 at 13:37
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    @Noldorin: The problem for an "-ize" preference is that there are some words ("arise" being the easiest example) for which "z" would be incorrect. As my preference is "-ise" I can avoid that pitfall. – Richard Aug 13 '10 at 15:40
  • @Richard: Agreed. This very much helps with consistency (or at least facility) of language. – Noldorin Aug 13 '10 at 16:30
  • @Richard: Taylor & Francis (a UK academic publisher) prefer -ize, citing OED. – Skilldrick Aug 13 '10 at 20:03
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    But the word arise has neither the suffix -ize nor the suffix -ise. It has the prefix a- plus the stem rise. The word "arise" is not relevant to the discussion of the two spellings of this suffix any more than the end of the word trouble is relevant to the spelling of the suffix -able. – Kosmonaut Aug 22 '10 at 18:36
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    @Richard the problem with preferring -ise is that -ize words always have a Z sound, whereas -ise words vary in pronunciation significantly: anise, promise, treatise, premise, concise, paradise, precise, vise, Denise, elise – nohat Oct 14 '10 at 23:53
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    -ise is also Australian, but this is only since the 1970s, I'm given to understand. I have no preference. -ize makes more sense, but -ise is the common style. – J D OConal Oct 15 '10 at 01:47
  • @nohat while true, why special case -ise /-ise. Consider the many ways of pronouncing -ough. But in the end all one can really do is explain the difference, resolving it is flying-pig territory. – Richard Oct 15 '10 at 07:02
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    @Kosmonaut the example "arise" is cite by Fowler, he gives others as well, but "arise" is easiest to remember. While the etymological structure might be different is does end with the three letters "ise". – Richard Oct 15 '10 at 07:03
  • @Richard : You argue that using -ise is better so to avoid pitfalls to misspell words that do not accept -ize at all. Well, there are examples of the other way around as well, where only -ize is accepted. Examples are: capsize, seize. – awe Jan 11 '11 at 09:37
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    @Kosmonaut : You have an argument to Richard that his examples do not have -ise as the ending - it just happens to end with the letters "ise" but the ending is really -rise (or others in other examples). Technically, you are absolutely right about that. But many will not be linguistically capable of seeing that difference, and those who do see the difference, will not fall in that pit anyway. – awe Jan 11 '11 at 09:44
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    I'm amazed no-one mentioned Greek. Many -ize verbs come from Greek (cf baptizein for example) so -ize is strictly correct. While it's true that -ise is more common in British English, the Church of England uses the word baptize in its official texts, along with authorize, solemnize and the like. – Andrew Leach Mar 24 '12 at 00:54
  • For most of these words, -ize is the accepted form in the US. In the UK, it depends on whether you accept Oxford guidelines (which have -ize) or the guidelines of other publishing houses (which prefer -ise). In other countries, -ise is the accepted form. So although the non-bolded part of Edward's answer is correct, his "advice" is incorrect in much of the English-speaking world. My advice would be the opposite, unless you are in USA. –  Mar 24 '12 at 01:27
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    The "z" is American, the "s" is British. Far too sweeping a statement; both versions are acceptable and only trends are apparent in the US and the UK.

    My advice: unless you are writing under guidelines that suggest otherwise, use the "z" form for these words. My advice: the choice is yours unless you are writing under guidelines that suggest otherwise. But if you're American, drink tea not coffee.

     – Edwin Ashworth Apr 02 '15 at 09:15
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You often hear people say that -ize is American and -ise is British. While it is certainly true that -ise has become dominant in Britain, -ize is the older spelling, and it once was dominant everywhere. Americans have retained it, while the British have increasingly – since the mid-20th-century I think – favoured -ise. Why, I don't know.

Last time I checked, both the (British) Oxford and Collins dictionaries gave -ize as the first spelling.

I'm British and I always use the -ize spelling, not least because the letter z is so underused, but also because it more accurately indicates its pronunciation (and -ise is plain ugly).

MetaEd
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Alistair
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    I think this answer would be better if it included a verifiable citation for "-ize is the older spelling" but even so, I am upvoting this for its slightly contrarian bent and the attempt to give 'z' a little more play. – John Y Feb 16 '11 at 03:58
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    @John Y: If you look at the Google Ngram for British English for characterize/characterise, you can see that the z spelling was predominant except between 1850 and 1920. The words organize and localize show similar behaviour. You can do a sanity check by looking at color/colour and seeing that this behaves as expected (color is quite rare in Britain until 1990 or so). Also, as an exception, analyse is still preferred in the U.K. – Peter Shor Jul 19 '11 at 17:43
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In publishing, we usually call these -ize and -ise spellings. Some UK publishers prefer -ize, but -ise is the predominant UK style.

See Oxford spelling on Wikipedia. OED prefers -ize spellings.

Skilldrick
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    Just to clarify: OED is the Oxford spelling, so Oxford prefers -ize spellings. With this in mind, it is not so simple to say that -ize is American and -ise is British, as many British use -ize. Se this Wikipedia article (also referenced in comment to the question post) for a thorough discussion on this. – awe Jan 11 '11 at 09:22
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The US requires -ize. The UK accepts both, but (with the OUP as the main exception) prefers -ise. And this is one of the few cases where "international" English follows the US convention. The ISO favours -ize spellings.

Inbuilt computer dictionaries set to UK English rarely support -ize. Feel free to overrule them.

TRiG
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Apparently, if you see a process of transformation, or as Dictionary.com defines the suffix, "1. To cause to become, resemble or agree with" the word should end with -ize, originating from the Late Latin -izāre, and the greek izein. Or -ize is the rule if there is a smaller word prior to the suffix. -ise is apparently from the latin past participle of words for "take", "see", and "cut" Analyse, for example, comes from (lysis) meaning dissolution. See http://theconversation.com/its-time-to-recognize-and-internalize-the-us-suffix-ize-19828

Daniel B
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That is because many spell checkers use American English.

Basically, z is used in North American English (American and Canadian), while s is used in British spellings. You can find explanations for this on the internet — like here, for example: http://www.studyenglishtoday.net/british-american-spelling.html

Which spelling you use, depends on who your audience is. If your writing is to be read mainly or only by speakers of American or Canadian English, use the North American spelling. If it is not, then use the British spelling.

Edwin Ashworth
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Tristan
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  • '[S] is used in British spellings' is far too broad-brush. It's the choice of about two-thirds of the people in the UK, last time I saw some data. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 26 '22 at 15:22
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The New Oxford American Dictionary reports both the words, and the spelling checker used from the Mac OS X (10.6) corrects me when I write organisation.

Considering that US English is set as first language (followed by British English), I would think that organization is the American English word (even though it is not reported by the New Oxford American Dictionary).

tchrist
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apaderno
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