LANGUAGE TAG REGISTRATION FORM

(last updated 2003-07-09)

Name of requester          : Michael Everson
E-mail address of requester: everson&evertype.com
Tag to be registered       : en-GB-oed

English name of language   : English, Oxford English Dictionary spelling

Native name of language (transcribed into ASCII): English, Oxford 
English Dictionary spelling

Reference to published description of the language (book or article):

The orthographies of en-GB and en-US differ in a number of ways, 
largely due to reforms introduced by Webster. The kinds of 
differences are summarized here:

en-US artifact, center, color, esophagus, esthetic, rationalize
en-GB artefact, centre, colour, oesophagus, aesthetic, rationalise

The spelling used in the editorial practice of the Oxford English 
Dictionary, however, differs from other en-GB spellings in its 
preference for -ize (and deriviatives -ized, -izes, -izing, -ization) 
to -ise for words making use of this productive Greek suffix.

The tag en-GB-oed can be used to mark text which, for instance, 
should be spell-checked against an Oxford-specific spelling 
dictionary, rather than a generic "British" one.

References

From Pearsall, Judy, ed. 2001. The new Oxford dictionary of English. 
Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-860441-6:

"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."

From Simpson, J. A., and E. S. C. Weiner, eds. 1994. The Oxford 
English dictionary. Second edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press:

"... the suffix itself,whatever the element to which it is added, is 
in its origin the Greek -izein, Latin -izare, and, as the 
pronunciation is also with z, there is no reason why in opposition to 
that which is at once etymological and phonetic. In this dictionary 
the termination is written uniformly -ize."

From Friedrichson, G. W. S. 1975. The shorter Oxford dictionary on 
historical principles. Third edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 
0-19-861126-9:

"The suffix, whatever the element to which it is added, is in its 
origin the Gr. -izein, L. -izare; and, as the pronunciation is also 
with z, there is no reason why in English the special French spelling 
-iser should ever be followed. Hence here the termination is 
uniformly written -ize."
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(created 2003-07-09)

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