Oxford spelling (also Oxford English Dictionary spelling, Oxford style, or Oxford English spelling) is a spelling standard, named after its use by the Oxford University Press, that prescribes the use of British spelling in combination with the suffix -ize in words like realize and organization instead of -ise endings.
Oxford spelling is used by many UK-based academic journals (for example, Nature ) and many international organizations (for example, the United Nations and its agencies). [1] [2] [3] It is common for academic, formal, and technical writing for an international readership. In digital documents, Oxford spelling may be indicated by the IETF language tag en-GB-oxendict (or historically by en-GB-oed). [4]
Oxford spelling uses the suffix ‑ize alongside ‑yse: organization, privatize and recognizable, rather than organisation, privatise and recognisable – alongside analyse, paralyse etc. The Oxford University Press states that the belief that ‑ize is an exclusively North American variant is incorrect. [5] The Oxford spelling affects about 200 verbs, [6] and is favoured on etymological grounds, in that ‑ize corresponds more closely to the Greek root, ‑izo , of most ‑ize verbs. [7]
The suffix ‑ize has been in use in the UK since the 15th century, [5] and is the spelling variation used in North American English. The OED lists the ‑ise form of words separately, as "a frequent spelling of ‑IZE ...":
This practice probably began first in French; in modern French the suffix has become ‑iser, alike in words from Greek, as baptiser, évangéliser, organiser, and those formed after them from Latin, as civiliser, cicatriser, humaniser.
Hence, some have used the spelling ‑ise in English, as in French, for all these words, and some prefer ‑ise in words formed in French or English from Latin elements, retaining ‑ize for those formed from Greek elements.
However, the suffix itself, whatever the element to which it is added, is in its origin the Greek ‑ιζειν, Latin ‑izāre; and, as the pronunciation is also with z, there is no reason why in English the special French spelling should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic. In this Dictionary the termination is uniformly written ‑ize. (In the Greek ‑ιζ‑, the i was short, so originally in Latin, but the double consonant z (= dz, ts) made the syllable long; when the z became a simple consonant, /‑idz/ became īz, whence English /‑aɪz/.)
The Oxford use of ‑ize does not extend to the spelling of words not traced to the Greek ‑izo, ‑izein suffixes. One group of such words is those ending in ‑lyse, such as analyse, paralyse and catalyse, which come from the Greek verb λύω, lyo, the perfective (aorist) stem of which is ‑lys-: for these, ‑lyse is the more etymological spelling. Others include advertise, arise, compromise, chastise, disguise, improvise, prise (in the sense of open), and televise.[ additional citation(s) needed ] [8]
In addition to the OUP's "Oxford"-branded dictionaries, other British dictionary publishers that list ‑ize suffixes first include Cassell, Collins, and Longman. [9]
Oxford spelling is used by the Oxford University Press (OUP) for British publications, [10] including its Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and its influential British style guide Hart's Rules , and by other publishers who are "etymology conscious", according to Merriam-Webster. [11]
Oxford spelling (especially the first form listed in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary , Twelfth Edition) is the official or de facto spelling standard used in style guides of the international organizations that belong to the United Nations System. [2] This includes the World Health Organization, the International Telecommunication Union, the International Labour Organization, the World Food Programme, the International Court of Justice, and UNESCO, and all UN treaties and declarations, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. [12]
Other international organizations that adhere to this standard include the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Interpol, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Amnesty International (AI), the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). [12] [13]
Oxford spelling is used in a number of academic publications, including the London-based scientific journal Nature and all other UK-based "Nature"-branded journals, the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society , and the Journal of Physiology . It is used by The Times Literary Supplement , Encyclopædia Britannica and Cambridge University Press. [12] Newspapers and magazines in the UK normally use -ise. The style guide of The Times recommended -ize until 1992, when it switched to -ise. [8] The newspaper's chief revise editor, Richard Dixon, wrote of the change: [8]
In the great -ize versus -ise debate, The Times has opted latterly for simplicity over a sort of erudition ... But in the Style Guide of 1992, the following entry appeared: "-ise, -isation: avoid the z construction in almost all cases. This is volcanic ground, with common usage straining the crust of classical etymology. This guidance is a revision of the Greek zeta root ending in the direction of a Latin ending and common usage: apologise, organise, emphasise, televise, circumcise. The only truly awkward result is capsize, which should be left in its Grecian peace."
In both the King James Bible and the works of Shakespeare, -ize endings are used throughout.[ additional citation(s) needed ] Well-known literary works that use Oxford spelling include The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien (an Oxford University professor), And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (married to an All Souls archaeologist), and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis (a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford).
Oxford spelling is not necessarily followed by the staff of the University of Oxford. The university's style guide, last updated in 2016, recommended the use of -ise for internal use. [14]
The following table summarizes a few general spelling differences among five major English spelling conventions, plus the French spelling convention for comparison. Note: en-GB simply stands for British English; it is not specified whether -ize or -ise should be used. The language tag en-GB-oxendict, however, demands the use of -ize and -ization.
| British en-GB | Oxford en-GB-oxendict | Australian en-AU | Canadian [15] en-CA | American en-US | cf. French fr-FR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| organisation | organization | organisation | organization | organization | organisation |
| realise | realize | realise | realize | realize | réaliser |
| ageing | ageing | aging, ageing | aging | aging | vieillissement |
| analyse | analyse | analyse | analyze | analyze | analyser |
| behaviour | behaviour | behaviour [lower-alpha 1] | behaviour | behavior | comportement [lower-alpha 2] |
| catalogue | catalogue | catalogue | catalogue | catalogue, catalog | catalogue |
| centre | centre | centre | centre | center | centre |
| defence | defence | defence | defence | defense | défense (noun) défendre (verb) |
| licence (noun) license (verb) | licence (noun) license (verb) | licence (noun) license (verb) | licence (noun) license (verb) | license | licence (noun) autoriser (verb) |
| programme program (computer code) | programme program (computer code) | program | program, programme | program | programme |
| traveller | traveller | traveller | traveller | traveler | travailleur (worker) voyageur (traveller) |
Australian English is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language and de facto national language; while Australia has no official language, English is the first language of the majority of the population, and has been entrenched as the de facto national language since British settlement, being the only language spoken in the home for 72% of Australians. It is also the main language used in compulsory education, as well as federal, state and territorial legislatures and courts.
British English is the set of varieties of the English language native to the island of Great Britain. More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly, to the collective dialects of English throughout the British Isles taken as a single umbrella variety, for instance additionally incorporating Scottish English, Welsh English, and Ulster English. Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English acknowledges that British English shares "all the ambiguities and tensions [with] the word 'British' and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly, within a range of blurring and ambiguity".
A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically, which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, pronunciations, translation, etc. It is a lexicographical reference that shows inter-relationships among the data.
New Zealand English (NZE) is the variant of the English language spoken and written by most English-speaking New Zealanders. Its language code in ISO and Internet standards is en-NZ. English is the first language of the majority of the population.
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a comprehensive resource to scholars and academic researchers, as well as describing usage in its many variations throughout the world.
A thesaurus, sometimes called a synonym dictionary or dictionary of synonyms, is a reference work which arranges words by their meanings, sometimes as a hierarchy of broader and narrower terms, sometimes simply as lists of synonyms and antonyms. They are often used by writers to help find the best word to express an idea:
...to find the word, or words, by which [an] idea may be most fitly and aptly expressed
Z, or z, is the twenty-sixth and last letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its usual names in English are zed, which is most commonly used in international English and zee, only used in American, sometimes Canadian and Caribbean English and with an occasional archaic variant izzard.
An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering questions such as how, in what way, when, where, to what extent. This is called the adverbial function and may be performed by single words (adverbs) or by multi-word adverbial phrases and adverbial clauses.
-logy is a suffix in the English language, used with words originally adapted from Ancient Greek ending in -λογία (-logía). The earliest English examples were anglicizations of the French -logie, which was in turn inherited from the Latin -logia. The suffix became productive in English from the 18th century, allowing the formation of new terms with no Latin or Greek precedent.
The Macquarie Dictionary is a dictionary of Australian English. It is considered by many to be the standard reference on Australian English. It also pays considerable attention to New Zealand English. Originally it was a publishing project of Jacaranda Press, a Brisbane educational publisher, for which an editorial committee was formed, largely from the Linguistics department of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. It is now published by Macquarie Dictionary Publishers, an imprint of Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd. In October 2007 it moved its editorial office from Macquarie University to the University of Sydney, and later to the Pan Macmillan offices in the Sydney central business district.
Xmas is a common abbreviation of the word Christmas. It is sometimes pronounced, but Xmas, and variants such as Xtemass, originated as handwriting abbreviations for the typical pronunciation. The 'X' comes from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Christós, which became Christ in English. The suffix -mas is from the Latin-derived Old English word for Mass.
The Greek language has contributed to the English lexicon in five main ways:
Folk etymology – also known as (generative) popular etymology, analogical reformation, (morphological)reanalysis and etymological reinterpretation – is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more familiar one through popular usage. The form or the meaning of an archaic, foreign, or otherwise unfamiliar word is reinterpreted as resembling more familiar words or morphemes.
In linguistics, a word stem is a part of a word responsible for its lexical meaning. Typically, a stem remains unmodified during inflection with few exceptions due to apophony
Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable variations being British and American spelling. Many of the differences between American and British/Commonwealth English date back to a time before spelling standards were developed. For instance, some spellings seen as "American" today were once commonly used in Britain, and some spellings seen as "British" were once commonly used in the United States.
Irregardless is a word sometimes used in place of regardless or irrespective, which has caused controversy since the early twentieth century, though the word appeared in print as early as 1795.
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In the Latin-based orthographies of many European languages, including English, a distinction between hard and soft ⟨c⟩ occurs in which ⟨c⟩ represents two distinct phonemes. The sound of a hard ⟨c⟩ often precedes the non-front vowels ⟨a⟩, ⟨o⟩ and ⟨u⟩, and is that of the voiceless velar stop,. The sound of a soft ⟨c⟩, typically before ⟨e⟩, ⟨i⟩ and ⟨y⟩, may be a fricative or affricate, depending on the language. In English, the sound of soft ⟨c⟩ is.
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[W]e use Oxford English spelling. So, for all of you wondering why we put 'z's in lots of words that you don't think we should, hopefully that answers your question.
Where there is a choice between using the suffix -ize or -ise (e.g. organize or organise), -ize, derived from the Greek ‑izo, is preferred, consistent with the first spelling of such words given in The concise Oxford dictionary[ sic ].
The ‑ize and ‑ise group
