I suppose we'd standardise, if we could agree on how it's spelt.

Lots of interesting responses. Thanks. On balance, I think I'll remain an -iser.

Chris

I think I'll remain an -iser

That's WW-iser

I always use 'ise' too - and it's house style at Headline, anyway. (It's also house style for the Cambridge Law Journal, so I think maybe I've been indoctrinated, from all those years of writing casenotes!)

R x

<Added>

(Whereas US-edited law journals tend to have a house style specifying 'ize'.)

I tend to use -ize more, and then Rosy shouts at me.

Sorry to be late for this tread but I just found the site by Googling the aforementioned recognise/recognize problem. It's ironic that the BBC website underlines the British version as does this website. Is that a function of Yahoo though, rather than the website?

It's ironic that the BBC website underlines the British version as does this website. Is that a function of Yahoo though, rather than the website?

I assume it's because the websites are based in the UK, rather than US.


- NaomiM

Sorry,just to clarify, I meant the spell-checker is telling me the British English version is wrong and suggests the US version.

I'm pretty sure that the spellchecker is part of your web browser - not hosted by the website itself.

I think you can alter the language of the dictionary but I'm not sure how!

re spellchecker-I think you're right. I've googled solutions but it seems that the major players have a default US setting and even if you change it to British or other English it won't actually alter the function. It seems we are beholden to the big US corps ie Google, Yahoo Visa, Ebay Paypal etc kind of rule the roost. (Whoops bit of politics
lazngenilmen)

There's a similar problem with date formats, which we software writers have to contend with. A lot of US-originated software defaults to a US date format (month/day/year), so if you type in (or send via software) a date like "01/12/2011", it assumes this means 12th January rather than 1st December. This is the case, for example, with Microsoft's SQL Server database software.