| 1 |
On Tuesday 19 May 2015 17:43:57 »Q« wrote: |
| 2 |
|
| 3 |
> The main difference between standard UK spelling and Oxford spelling is |
| 4 |
> that Oxford spelling uses -ize endings (criticize, optimize) whereas |
| 5 |
> standard UK spelling uses -ise. Using Oxford will make most readers |
| 6 |
> think you're using American spelling, since Americans use -ize. |
| 7 |
|
| 8 |
Yes, and I've never understood that. The -ise version is true to its French |
| 9 |
origins (remember 1066?), while as far as I can see the -ize version has no |
| 10 |
precedent. It also doesn't help with knowing which ending to use in a |
| 11 |
particular case, so I've no idea why they've adopted it. |
| 12 |
|
| 13 |
Moreover, Oxford English insists on that egregious comma before nearly every |
| 14 |
"and", which is just stupid. It causes as many problems as it avoids, and it's |
| 15 |
deadly to the flow of the sentence. I once argued about it with an American |
| 16 |
contributor to an e-mail list, and was told "it's a matter of style". No. |
| 17 |
Wrong. It's just slavish obedience of an arbitrary rule which cannot be |
| 18 |
justified in any rational way. Just consider: "and" is equivalent to a comma in |
| 19 |
most cases; it's how a child starts out until it learns something more |
| 20 |
sophisticated. So pairing the two leaves us with nonsense. |
| 21 |
|
| 22 |
Just my two penn'orth. |
| 23 |
|
| 24 |
-- |
| 25 |
Rgds |
| 26 |
Peter |
Archives