So the ISO calls itself, on their website, the International Organization for Standardization.

Since it’s their name and that’s the way they spell it, despite being based in Geneva, do I also have to use those American spellings when I refer to them? Considering it’s their name and they’re allowed to dictate how to spell it, I feel compelled. OTOH, I don’t want to.

Kothos said:

So the ISO calls itself, on their website, the International Organization for Standardization.

Since it’s their name and that’s the way they spell it, despite being based in Geneva, do I also have to use those American spellings when I refer to them? Considering it’s their name and they’re allowed to dictate how to spell it, I feel compelled. OTOH, I don’t want to.

I’ve always preferred the z spelling for those sorts of words. The s looks wrong to me. I have no idea what I was taught way back in the 1960s and 1970s. But we weren’t very US oriented then.

buffy said:

Kothos said:

So the ISO calls itself, on their website, the International Organization for Standardization.

Since it’s their name and that’s the way they spell it, despite being based in Geneva, do I also have to use those American spellings when I refer to them? Considering it’s their name and they’re allowed to dictate how to spell it, I feel compelled. OTOH, I don’t want to.

I’ve always preferred the z spelling for those sorts of words. The s looks wrong to me. I have no idea what I was taught way back in the 1960s and 1970s. But we weren’t very US oriented then.

My Collins Concise (Australian Edition) Dictionary (1982) gives the z spelling first and the s spelling as an alternative second for organization/organize. I’ll see if I’ve got an older dictionary somewhere here.

Kothos said:

So the ISO calls itself, on their website, the International Organization for Standardization.

Since it’s their name and that’s the way they spell it, despite being based in Geneva, do I also have to use those American spellings when I refer to them? Considering it’s their name and they’re allowed to dictate how to spell it, I feel compelled. OTOH, I don’t want to.

I am amazed that the French haven’t insisted that it be called the OSI.

I’d say that since both spellings are regarded as correct English, feel free to use the one you prefer.

Ah, got a 1939 Pocket Oxford Dictionary. It only has organization and organize. No s spelling at all.

Bubblecar said:

I’d say that since both spellings are regarded as correct English, feel free to use the one you prefer.

If you receive complaints from them about using ‘s’ in the spelling, you can explain to them that you will use ‘z’ when they themselves start using ‘z’ in the following words:

advertise
compromise
exercise
revise
advise
despise
improvise
supervise
apprise
devise
incise
surmise
chastise
disguise
prise (meaning ‘open’)
surprise
comprise
excise
promise
televise

it’sn’t that important

captain_spalding said:

Bubblecar said:

I’d say that since both spellings are regarded as correct English, feel free to use the one you prefer.

If you receive complaints from them about using ‘s’ in the spelling, you can explain to them that you will use ‘z’ when they themselves start using ‘z’ in the following words:

advertise
compromise
exercise
revise
advise
despise
improvise
supervise
apprise
devise
incise
surmise
chastise
disguise
prise (meaning ‘open’)
surprise
comprise
excise
promise
televise

Yeah, but…those words are somehow different. What about:

deputize
deodorize
jeopardize

Can you think of others? Those three all go with a z in 1939. Is it to do with the number of syllables or something?

buffy said:

Ah, got a 1939 Pocket Oxford Dictionary. It only has organization and organize. No s spelling at all.

That’s nuts. The OED is English, I thought it would avoid American spellings?

maybe there isn’t a single pure historical ideal English to refer back to imagine that

SCIENCE said:

it’sn’t that important

It’s important to ME :-p

SCIENCE said:

maybe there isn’t a single pure historical ideal English to refer back to imagine that

I assume you’ll be washing your mouth out with soap tonight.

Kothos said:

buffy said:

Ah, got a 1939 Pocket Oxford Dictionary. It only has organization and organize. No s spelling at all.

That’s nuts. The OED is English, I thought it would avoid American spellings?

It’s not an American spelling, it’s an English spelling.

Got any more words you want me to look in the 1939 dictionary for to disagree with?

buffy said:

Got any more words you want me to look in the 1939 dictionary for to disagree with?

commentating

buffy said:

Kothos said:

buffy said:

Ah, got a 1939 Pocket Oxford Dictionary. It only has organization and organize. No s spelling at all.

That’s nuts. The OED is English, I thought it would avoid American spellings?

It’s not an American spelling, it’s an English spelling.

Aye, both spellings were/are used in English English, with the “s” spelling becoming more common outside America after the latter had already been settled with people who used the “z” spelling.

buffy said:

Can you think of others? Those three all go with a z in 1939. Is it to do with the number of syllables or something?

It may have more to do with the ‘Simplified Spelling’ movement in the US in the early 20th century.

Begun as an honest movement to address some of the more mysterious aspects of the English language, it had some reasonable ideas (colour→color, flavour→flavor), and some rather less so (laugh→laf, your→yur, asked→askt).

The substitution of ‘z’ for ‘s’ in some (but not all) words with the ‘z’ sound was one of their ideas, and it’s one of those (like tyre→tire) that has lingered after the less appealing notions of the movement fell into widespread dfisregard.

If you examine American news articles before about 1906, the use of the ‘simplified’ spellings is rare in the extreme.

Michael V said:

buffy said:

Got any more words you want me to look in the 1939 dictionary for to disagree with?

commentating

Got comment, commentary, commentator. You word does not exist!

captain_spalding said:

buffy said:

Can you think of others? Those three all go with a z in 1939. Is it to do with the number of syllables or something?

It may have more to do with the ‘Simplified Spelling’ movement in the US in the early 20th century.

Begun as an honest movement to address some of the more mysterious aspects of the English language, it had some reasonable ideas (colour→color, flavour→flavor), and some rather less so (laugh→laf, your→yur, asked→askt).

The substitution of ‘z’ for ‘s’ in some (but not all) words with the ‘z’ sound was one of their ideas, and it’s one of those (like tyre→tire) that has lingered after the less appealing notions of the movement fell into widespread dfisregard.

If you examine American news articles before about 1906, the use of the ‘simplified’ spellings is rare in the extreme.

“z” was used in English for words like “organize” from the earliest days of their introduction to English via French & Latin etc.

It’s just that the English retained variables spellings while the Americans settled on one or the other.

Bubblecar said:

It’s just that the English retained variables spellings while the Americans settled on one or the other.

I don’t think that we can entirely disregard the paranoia of some Americans, and their wish to distance themselves from their former English ‘oppressors’ (as late as the 1920s, the mayor of Chicago threatened to ‘bust that King George right in the snoot if he ever came over here’).

Rejecting the ‘s’ spellings in favour of ‘z’ would have had the added attraction of being a tiny little expression of ‘American freedom’ from their colonial past.

fk we think everyone should just go back to the good old days when there were only 4 chemical elements

buffy said:

Kothos said:

buffy said:

Ah, got a 1939 Pocket Oxford Dictionary. It only has organization and organize. No s spelling at all.

That’s nuts. The OED is English, I thought it would avoid American spellings?

It’s not an American spelling, it’s an English spelling.

I had no idea.

buffy said:

Michael V said:

buffy said:

Got any more words you want me to look in the 1939 dictionary for to disagree with?

commentating

Got comment, commentary, commentator. Your word does not exist!

As I thought. A neologism.

Michael V said:

buffy said:

Michael V said:

commentating

Got comment, commentary, commentator. Your word does not exist!

As I thought. A neologism.

So were all words when they were born :)

fraternize

ISO = International Standards Organisation
SAA = Standards Association of Australia
DIN = Deutsches Institut für Normung
ANSI = American National Standards Institute
JIS = Japanese Industrial Standards

Essential reading for engineers.

mollwollfumble said:

ISO = International Standards Organisation
SAA = Standards Association of Australia
DIN = Deutsches Institut für Normung
ANSI = American National Standards Institute
JIS = Japanese Industrial Standards

Essential reading for engineers.

Only in your field of interest though.

Using Z instead of S is of no use to those of us crosswordists. (a new word there)