organize, British form

Help me here,

My personal dictionary contradicts the information on dictionary.com and I need the correct British form of the word organize. Is it with an s or z?

The British form is organise. I checked with Firefox spell check.

AFAIK, the British spelling of most words ending with "ize" is "ise". Organise, realise, etc.

Thanks both.

Organise is the correct British English spelling.

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Mats

I'm going to play devil's idiot and say it's "organize."

MS Word's spell-checker set to UK English is accepting both.

Edit: But with US spelling, organise is "incorrect".

--
Mats

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I'm going to play devil's idiot and say it's "organize."

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I think you are correct. My copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary (5th Edition) lists "organize" as the canonical spelling with "organise" as an alternative. Note that this dictionary differs from the Oxford English Dictionary in its policy of excluding words such as ardor, color, favor as being entirely non-British.

Yes. There seems to be much noise around these issues. Authoritative dictionaries don't even agree among themselves.

We have similar problems with the Portuguese language, since it is spoken in 4 continents. Isn't there in England some form of "Orthographic Agreement" as we have here for the mother tongue?

Meanwhile I decided for "organise". There seems a bigger number of dictionaries going that way. Besides I can't say no to a Brit.

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Originally Posted by Mario F.

Besides I can't say no to a Brit.

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I can... I'm American. It's simply in our historic nature. :)

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Originally Posted by SlyMaelstrom

I can... I'm American. It's simply in our historic nature. :)

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I sort of always looked at England like a brother actually. The Revolution was centuries ago, just barely.

I have to say the best jokes about Brits, I have heard them from aussies and canucks. US has been laying low.

Yeah. I've become fierce pedantic about my English/US spelling of late. Used not care much either way before.

Mario, simple rule of thumb: if it ends in ise/ize and you want the British version always use s.

>> I sort of always looked at England like a brother actually.
The Irish consider them more of an infection of sorts ;) A head cold, perhaps.

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Mario, simple rule of thumb: if it ends in ise/ize and you want the British version always use s.

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Yeah, but remarkably the -ize version is British in this special case.

That is indeed curious. Rules of thumb are never totally conclusive though.
You certain? Does the British version allow both, or only ize? I didn't know that.

>> My copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary (5th Edition) lists "organize" as the canonical spelling with "organise" as an alternative.
Curious!

>> Note that this dictionary differs from the Oxford English Dictionary in its policy of excluding words such as ardor, color, favor as being entirely non-British.
Excluding words as being non-British means they are British?
If so having "ize" makes sense.
If you meant that yours doesn't have color, favor etc then that is indeed a curious idiom.

I'm totally confused by now. :)

Had to send a proposal to a book author this morning. I hope she either misses it or finds it to be correct. The word can be located in 5 different places on the document. Oh well.

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Excluding words as being non-British means they are British?

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No, "as" meaning "due to them being" here. Of course, the British equivalents are ardour, colour, and favour.

>> No, "as" meaning "due to them being" here.
Ah. I see now. What a crazy language, huh?

I'd say not to worry about it too much, Mario. The meaning will be understood.

>> I'm totally confused by now.
You're not the only one!