My Spelling World Was Just Blown Up

[Captain Colonial]

Bear with me, this one needs some explaining...

When I grew up in the States, we were taught to spell certain words so they ended in "ize", such as "realize", "criticize" and sympathize".

When I later moved to England and was using these spellings, a number of people "criticised" me and said using a "z" instead of an "s" was wrong and yet another example of Americans wrongly changing the language, so I began to spell those words with an "ise" to avoid issues.

It now transpires that, according to the OED, the way I was taught to spell those words was right all along.  Criticize, sympathize, realize, agonize...

My brain hurts now, but I do get to be Pedantic Man in the future over this, so I guess it's not all bad.

Similar subject joke:

> Knock knock

< Who's there?

> To

< To who?

> No, it's "to whom"

[mikef]

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

Whom Tyler was the leader of the Pedants' Revolt...

[Simon Marks - North Oxfordshire AO]

Hi, Scott,

I come from an "ise" background and have taken on Suzie Dent's (the Dictionary Corner Queen from Countdown) advice that I should use "ize".  At my advancing age, I can tell you that it is a struggle - particularly with crosswords and anagrams when a "z" slips in!

Simon

[pistonbroke]

I see your game 

You are trying to indoctrinize us Limey's 

Well it won't work, we have big brother spellchecker   

 

[Stuart]

IIRC you guys are right on aluminum too

[Terry Everall]

Elephants have trunks and cars have boots

 

[DamperMan]

Being dyslexic means ized or ised is the least of my concerns.    Being told to use a dictionary is fine if you can spell enough of the word to start with.   American spellings definitely add to the challenge although does sometimes give me options! 

Center vs centre etc.  

If the purpose of writing is to be able to communicate and record information then the small details of exact spelling or grammer are in my view over rated, if some one can understand clearly. 

English is just a nightmare to spell anyway.     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Olliebeak]

Creeping americanisation (is that a word) is just part of the general lowering of standards, leisure clothing,beards,shopping in your pyjamas,council workmanship etc etc. You should be taught to spell and school and improve through life via things like crosswords etc

When I was working I once left a job because I was told to write the dates on a report in the reverse order e.g 07242017 . I refused as this is so obviously wrong. 

[Simon Marks - North Oxfordshire AO]

I agree with you and the dates, Olliebeak - but writing it in that way helps computers to file dated information in an easier to search way.  I enter dates "properly" and spend longer searching!

Simon

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Nearly on the dates; it used to annoy the hell out of me too, till I started doing programming, years ago, and needed to save files incrementally, i instantly realised that year:month:day meant they were listed in some kind of practical order.

 

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

2 hours ago, Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Secretary said:

Nearly on the dates; it used to annoy the hell out of me too, till I started doing programming, years ago, and needed to save files incrementally, i instantly realised that year:month:day meant they were listed in some kind of practical order.

 

I think Olliebeak is referring to the Pilgim format: m/d/y not a complete reverse as you describe. I am inclined to agree with you and with Olliebeak. The weird m/d/y format makes no sense with its mixed magnitude steps approach. It's arguable that addresses should be in decreasing steps too:

HP6 9YT

Berkshire

Slough

Slough Trading Estate

Fleming Road

XYZ Engineering Ltd

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Yeah, i realised what he meant, I was more adding to Sunbeams post, where for filing purposes it works best if you put the year first, m:d:y is neither one thing nor the other!

[Rhett Turner - Black Country AO]

mm.dd.yy is a form that you may write or rather say a date ie July 27th 2017, but to me when you record a date numerically it should either be yy.mm.dd or  dd.mm.yy. 

I too come from a computer back ground so when I say yy I really mean yyyy as I'm old enough to have been caught out be the millennium bug (which was not a bug but laziness catching up)