Ise Or Ize?

[pinstripe]

Apologise or apologize? A colleague swears that the ize ending is the correct spelling and was taught that at school. (This is English not American by the way)
Which is the correct historical usage ?

[Svejk]

Either. It is S now in England but used to be Z.

[Calibax]

-ise or -ize is a matter of style and either is correct. In the UK we generally use -ise and the US tend to use -ize (although Oxford University Press use -ize)

[Prudie]

"Apologize is the preferred spelling in American and Canadian English, and apologise is preferred in varieties of English from outside North America. This is the case despite the fact that apologize is the original form and was once standard even in British English (and is still used by some British publishers).
Apologise vs. apologize - Grammarist
grammarist.com/spelling/apologise-apologize/"

I use -ise-

[DTCwordfan]

Both, Oxford Uni uses ize and Cambridge ise

[AlwaysConfused]

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/03/ize-or-ise/

I'm all for -ise, though, -ize feels too American to me. Auto-correct usually tries to ize my words.

[ichkeria]

It's a misconception that -ize is American.

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/03/ize-or-ise/

[Old_Geezer]

Just means it took a while to correct official English spelling.

[DTCwordfan]

fyi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_spelling

[reinganum]

My edition of Fowler (Modern English Usage) gives a full explanation. The other posters are correct in that the OUP and the Times (for example) prefer -ize; but Fowler also gives a list of common words where -ise MUST be used:
advertise, chastise, circumcise, comprise, compromise, demise, despise, devise, disguise, enterprise, franchise, enterprise, exercise, improvise, promise, supervise and surprise (there are others but these are the most commonly used).

[Jackdaw33]

For some reason the ize suffix always looks wrong to me, even though I know that it is correct. Probably because I'm not used to seeing it.

[Jackdaw33]

I remember an episode of Inspector Morse where the culprit was trapped by his repeated use of ize rather than ise.

[Jackdaw33]

The problem is that English is not a phonetic language. I think that it was G B Shaw who pointed out that the word 'fish' could be written as 'ghoti'.

gh as in cough, o as in women, ti as in station.

[DaisyNonna]

Wonder which the exam boards recognise/recognize

[Jackdaw33]

Probably both.

[Peter Pedant]

ise

but dont shoot him - it aint worf it

remember that dictionaries record use not correct use
so when you look up one the wrong one will also be there because it is used

[Jackdaw33]

The problem is that in English the letter 's' can also be pronounced as 'z', especially in plurals. We say boyz, not boyss.

[jourdain2]

I would always use 'apologise' and regard 'apologize' as an aberrant americanism. :)

[jourdain2]

^^^ I accept that I am probably wrong in this - but it feels better to me!

[jno]

The Times used to use -ize but switched about 20 years ago. It's mostly -ise now, but still -ize in the USA. Both are correct, though there are some short words like surprise and prize that are only ever spelt one way.

[jno]

and prise, of course, different word from prize.