en-GB-oxford LANGUAGE TAG REGISTRATION FORM

[William Overington]

Good for you!

Long have I felt cheated by people who tell me that spelling transistorized
with a z is "an Americanism" when they do not realize that it is Oxford
University Press practice based upon a sound historical foundation yet try
to make out that I have made an error.  I read about the use of the -ize
ending in Horace Hart's book on rules for compositors at the Oxford
University Press years ago where, I seem to remember, transistorize was a
stated example.

As a side-note, I seem to remember that there are, however, some words
ending in -ise which American English spells with an -ize ending yet which
Oxford English spells with an -ise ending.  This being due to the origins of
the words.  Could you possibly say something about this please.  I once
tried to think of it that if, when considering an (-ise or -ize) word, the
corresponding word with (-isation or -ization) made sense, such as
computerization, that the -ize ending was correct, otherwise use -ise.  This
works for words such as surprise, yet I do seem to remember that there
are -isation words which Oxford English spells -isation which American
English spells -ization.

One other small point.  Could the first letter of Oxford be a capital letter
or would that go against the format of the tagging system?

Following the comments of Mark Crispin.

>I don't know about "civilize", but I know that the Canadian government
>uses the spellings "authorization" and "licence"; ....

Yes, civilize and civilization, licence with a c and licensing with an s.
Also a double letter l in travelling to a meeting about mathematical
modelling.  Yet the word paralleled has only one letter l at the end due to
the double l before it!  I am not quite sure whether Oxford English would
use authorization or would use authorisation.  I think we need some advice
from an adviser, that is with an e, not an advisor with an o!

William Overington

30 May 2003

>LANGUAGE TAG REGISTRATION FORM
>
>Name of requester          : Michael Everson
>E-mail address of requester: everson at evertype.com
>Tag to be registered       : en-GB-oxford
>
>English name of language   : English, Oxford orthography
>
>Native name of language (transcribed into ASCII): English, Oxford
orthography
>
>Reference to published description of the language (book or article):
>
>Although it is widely believed that en-US and en-GB differ in that
>the former spells "color" and "civilize" and the latter spells
>"colour" and "civilise", in fact this is not entirely the case.
>Oxford spelling prefers the spellings "colour" and "civilize". Oxford
>prefers -ize because this is the etymological spelling (from Greek
>-izein).
>
>"The form -ize has been in use in English since the 16th century;
>although it is widely used in American English, it is not an
>Americanism. The alternative spelling -ise (reflecting a French
>influence) is in common use, especially in British English."
>
>References:
>
>Pearsall, Judy, ed. 2001. The New Oxford Dictionary of English.
>Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-860441-6
>_______________________________________________
>Ietf-languages mailing list
>Ietf-languages at alvestrand.no
>http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages
>
>