You say globalization, I say globalisation

[pne]

I just came across a comment where someone was annoyed at having to use American spellings when programming due to the fact that many libraries use American spelling.

I can sympathise with not wanting to spell colour as color, but I was less sympathetic when he complained about having to use the spelling Globalization in C# libraries.

As I understand it, the use of the spellings -ise and -isation are considered a UK thing, and are not used (or are less common) in the US. Nevertheless, the converse is not true: that is, the spellings -ize and -ization are not confined to the US, but are in use in the UK as well. I'm not even sure whether the -s- spellings have a majority in the UK.

Besides, if they want to use "proper" and "traditional" spellings rather than "new-fangled" and "alternative" ones, then they should be using -z- anyway; to the best of my knowledge, that morpheme comes from Greek -ίζω via Latin -iz-, so the spelling with -z- is more justified etymologically. (An exception is analyse, which had an -s- [well, a sigma] in the original Ancient Greek; the spelling analyze is, I suppose, by analogy with verbs in -ize.) For that matter, they should also call the chemical element aluminum, which was its official name; the spelling aluminium is a later modification.

As for me, I prefer the spellings colour, globalisation, aluminium, but more because it's what I grew up with than because I think that all those spellings are "more original" or "the only proper British spelling".

Comments

[ghewgill.livejournal.com]

Another data point: In Australia and even more strongly in New Zealand, the -ise ending is preferred.

[util.livejournal.com]

Did he get any flack from people who don't even have English as a native language?

I wonder if reforms that ignore etymology actually make the language harder to learn. I've heard this complaint with simplified Chinese (although I don't really know how seriously it's regarded). I suppose British and American English don't diverge enough to make much of a noticeable difference though.

[pne.livejournal.com]

I wonder if reforms that ignore etymology actually make the language harder to learn.

There's certainly something to be said for morphophonemic spelling, where related words look similar -- for example, where "toxic" and "toxicity" both have a "c", rather than being, say, "toxik" and "toxisity".

Sometimes languages even have spelling reforms that go further _away_ from phonetic spelling! For example, Korean, which went more morphophonemic. And I think there's something to be said for that.

[pthalo]

I also prefer the -ise ending and have trouble with programming because the "ise" comes off my fingers and then I have to remember to write American and edit it. Because I don't type letter by letter but word by word. I don't mind because there has to be one standard or the other. I just have to remember to backspace a bit and change it when I type too fast.