There are certain advantages in living on the corner where the election stands are set up (no tents today because of gale force winds).

But who shall I vote for?

American English: -ize, -ization, -izing etc.
British English: either -ize or -ise

If you use -ise, write capsize
If you use -ize, write surprise, analyse and some other words (in AmE, one sometimes sees surprize, analyze, but this is not really accepted in BrE)

I always used to use the -ize, but some clients want -ise. Most clients believe that -ize is wrong in BrE – it isn’t – and I think the EU Interinstitutional style guide insists (for what it’s worth) on -ise.

As a general rule the first entry in the Concise Oxford dictionary should be followed. An exception to this rule is the spelling of words ending in -ise/-ize. Although both forms are correct, the preferred spelling is ‘-ise’ and this should be applied to ensure consistency.

This is silly, isn’t it?

Still, I find it worth keeping the Microsoft Word spellchecker free of -izes, so I can make sure I didn’t slip one in when the client wanted -ise.

The Oxford University Press is famous for using -ize, but it is not the only publisher to do so. Some translators not a million miles away from Oxford get very angry on this topic.

In this connection, the Plain Language Commission has a free newsletter, Pikestaff, with back copies available on its website, and in number 13 it has this to say:

Zee what we zed
Following our reminder in Pikestaff 12 about why we use ‘z’ rather than ‘s’ in words like ‘organization’, a reader emailed to ask whether its being the older English form is really a good reason to do this. Certainly, it’s natural that language evolves over time, and we don’t believe in sticking with tradition where there’s a more modern and clearer way.

In fact, the ‘z’ form is more widespread in British English than people may think, with data from the British National Corpus (BNC) showing a ratio of just 3:2 in favour of the ‘s’ spelling. It’s also the first form given in many British dictionaries for words deriving from the Greek and Latin suffixes, ‘-izein’ and ‘-izare’, and part of the house style of Oxford University Press. There are phonological and etymological arguments for using the ‘z’ form, ‘z’ representing better the sound of the suffix, and correlating better with the Greek and Latin forms of the suffix.

There are some words – like ‘surprise’ and ‘analyse’ – that can’t be spelt with a ‘z’; these derive from French rather than the classical languages. But in the US, some dictionaries now spell some such words with ‘z’ – so, ‘surprize’ and ‘analyze’. It’s rare in British English though, so if you want to follow our style, you need to remember the exceptions. ‘Capsize’ is the only word that can’t be spelt with an ‘s’.

If all this hasn’t made you feel like taking a zizz, you can read more about the topic in the corpus-based Cambridge Guide to English Usage (by Pam Peters), pages 298–9. There, the arguments in favour of the ‘z’ form lead Peters – like us – to conclude that ‘the systematic use of -ize spellings recommends itself on distributional and phonological grounds’. In our editing work, of course, we follow the customers’ house style.

(Thanks to Sue of the ITI)

1. Stuttgart Zoo – small friendly penguin probably stolen. Spiegel Online:

“She couldn’t have walked out with so many people around, but it would’t be so difficult to carry her away,” said Koch. “She’s just the size of a sack of flour.”

A sack of flour? Would that be ten pounds or twenty pounds?

2. Shiny Shiny introduces an ‘interesting toothbrush kit’.

Particularly interesting is its double function as, inter alia, a ‘G spot simulator’. Or maybe they will have changed the spelling by now.

3. The Süddeutsche Zeitung reports that the two small pandas in Nuremberg Zoo perhaps were killed by the muntjaks after all. That’s what I’ve believed all along. It was only recently that I heard that the pandas had killed a (baby?) muntjak on the same evening.

Die beiden Kleinen Pandabären im Nürnberger Tiergarten sind eventuell doch von anderen Tieren in ihrem Gehege getötet worden. Am Freitag verdichteten sich Hinweise darauf, dass die beiden Muntjak-Hirsche über ihre Mitbewohner hergefallen sein könnten.

4. Austrian police slow off the mark. Just because a mayor finds strichnine-laced Mon Chéris with a lipstick heart on his windscreen, doesn’t mean the would-be murderer was a woman. SZ again:

Die Liebesgrüße aus der Wachau waren vergiftet. Hannes Hirtzberger, Bürgermeister des malerischen Weinstädtchens Spitz an der Donau, fand am 8. Februar einen schmeichelhaften Gruß an der Windschutzscheibe seines Mercedes vor dem Gemeindeamt: Einen Umschlag mit einem Praliné der Marke “Mon Chérie”, dazu eine Grußkarte. “Du bist für mich etwas ganz besonderes”, stand da geschrieben.

Isabella Massardo’s weblog Taccuino di traduzione, which closed down a couple of months ago, has reappeared at another address, now in WordPress, as Taccuino di traduzione 2.0. Isabella is in the Netherlands. She writes (in Italian, but with many references to English sites) most of the time, but a second blogger, who is a copywriter, writes about once a week.

I have actually got some law and translation topics, but not much time to write them up. So the series of ornithological discoveries continues – this is (I have convinced myself) a young white-fronted goose: it hasn’t got the white front yet, although the pale patch on its cheek is developing. A winter visitor to Germany. I watch out for geese on their own, away from the flock. There is a big group of Canada geese, and another of greylag geese, sometimes joined by two barheaded geese. But when I photographed what I thought was a greylag goose separated from the flock, I found when I looked at the picture that it was a bean goose (Saatgans), with orange feet instead of pink.

Incidentally, Andreas has some great pictures of geese in the Fürth Stadtpark on his weblog.

LATER NOTE: This is probably a cross between a Canada goose and a greylag goose. See later entry.

I thought George Steiner affected British English?

What has really got the reviewers’ goat is his litany of sexual conquests. He is fluent in at least four languages, and has had memorable sex in them all. “To make love in Italian is to know that certain days run to 25 hours” … “Gloriously astride me, my first teacher in the arts of orgasm … bade me ‘Come, come now and deep.’ But did so using the formal vous.” “V’s grammar of love-making was Viennese … She mapped her own opulent physique and that of her lover(s) with place names derived from the capital’s varied districts and suburbs. Thus ‘taking the streetcar to Grinzing’ signified a gentle, somewhat respectful anal access.”

amazon.de: George Steiner,
My Unwritten Books