Why do aussies and brits never use a z?

Question

like realise, realize ok ok,

Answer 1

there's lots of words like that....flavour, colour, grey/gray, aluminium, just go along...

Answer 2

"The exposure to the different spellings of British and American English leads to a certain amount of spelling variation such as organise/organize. British spelling is generally preferred, although some words are usually written in the American form, such as program and jail rather than programme and gaol (although commonly one could be 'jailed' in a 'gaol')."

"-ise / -ize
American spelling accepts only organize, recognize, and realize. British usage accepts both -ize and the more French-looking -ise (organise, recognise, realise). However, the -ize spelling is now rarely used in the UK in the mass media and newspapers, and is hence often incorrectly regarded as an Americanism [1], despite being preferred by some authoritative British sources, including Fowler's Modern English Usage and the Oxford English Dictionary, which until recently did not list the -ise form of many individual words, even as an alternative. Indeed, it firmly deprecates this usage, stating, "The suffix, whatever the element to which it is added, is in its origin the Greek... (or) Latin -izare; and, as the pronunciation is also with z, there is no reason why in English the special French spelling in -iser should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic."

But the OED has been fighting a losing battle. The -ise form is used by the British government and is more prevalent in common usage within the UK today; the ratio between -ise and -ize stands at 3:2 in the British National Corpus, according to Pam Peters (2004, -ize/-ise). In Australia and New Zealand -ise spellings are strongly preferred; the Australian Macquarie Dictionary, among other sources, gives the -ise spelling first and many people in New Zealand and Australia believe -ize to be an "Americanism" and -ise to be British; some are even taught in school that this is the case. Conversely, Canadian usage is essentially like American, although -ise is occasionally found in Canada.

The same pattern applies to derivatives and inflections such as colonisation/colonization.

Worldwide, the use of -ize in combination with British spelling is common in academic publishing (e.g. used in the science journal Nature, the WHO's ICD and ISO standards).

Endings in -yze are now found only in the U.S. and Canada. Thus, Commonwealth (including sometimes Canada) analyse, catalyse, hydrolyse, paralyse; North American analyze, catalyze, hydrolyze, paralyze. It is worth noting, however, that analyse was commonly spelled analyze from the first — a spelling also accepted by Samuel Johnson; the word, which came probably from French analyser, on Greek analogy would have been analysize, from French analysiser, from which analyser was formed by haplology.

Note that not all spellings are interchangeable; some verbs take the -z- form exclusively, for instance capsize, seize (except in the legal phrase to be seised of/to stand seised to), size and prize (only in the "appraise" sense), whereas others take only -s-: advertise, advise, apprise, arise, chastise, circumcise, comprise, compromise, demise, despise, devise, disguise, and televise. Finally, the verb prise (meaning to force or lever) is spelled prize in the U.S. and prise everywhere else, including Canada."

Answer 3

Because as most people have said, Australians and Brits have learnt to use the original English language. The US has adopted their own form of the English Language. From England. Get it? LOL then you have the cheek to imply that we're wrong...

Answer 4

It's funny hearing people say "because we know how to spell", when it's pronunciation sounds like it should be a Z as in realize.
Just their way of trying to maintain their "superiority" over Americans.

Answer 5

It's the Queens English, the language is not American, never has been and never will be. I would like a spell check that could actually have an English dictionary and not the American one.

Answer 6

English as a language is a very different creature without the many americanised changes.....

Australia learned English from the English..... and didn't feel the need to screw it up to make it different.....

Obviously either the american forefathers couldn't spell or wanted to 'be' different to the the brittish in some way....

Answer 7

For the same reason as we spell theatre, centre, colour and flavour correctly;) It was Noah Webster who decided that Americans would do things differently

Answer 8

Because most of us use UK english, because we were settled by the British. I do use a 'z' because I've been taught to spell that way but most don't.

Hmmm How come when you say water, it sounds like warder?

Answer 9

Not just Aussies and Brits - you should include Canadians in that as well,eh?

Answer 10

The english language is - well - from England.
Australia's heritage is british based, so we use English.

Other countries that speak english, use their own inperpretation of it, but the UK english is the original.........

Answer 11

Because they use proper English and unlike Americans they tend to use slang i.e color, colour isn't and ain't