Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB
Perhaps you have noticed that I'm Canadian? In these parts, we tend to be very accepting of the various oddities in English orthography. Heck, we are even accepting of New Zealand's continued use of fiord instead of fjord.
And yes, we do use both ise and ize. Looking in most Canadian dictionaries, you will often see multiple spellings with the first listed being the preferred. Oddly, if you look at British spelling, you will also find ise/ize being used.
Of course, since the northernmost settlement in Canada is Grise Fiord aka Aujuittuq (Inuktitut ᐊᐅᔪᐃᑦᑐᖅ, 'Place that never thaws'), we may be biased towards fiord.
|
Webster (and France) are prescriptive. Oxford English Dictionary and mostly Collins and Chambers etc, English outside the USA, is not prescriptive but reflects use. Using -ise or -ize, nosy or nosey and other variations are allowed. It is important to pick and be consistent in a single document, a periodical/newspaper, novel or series.
Also real languages are not frozen or in aspic, they change.
Fiord vs Fjord.
In Ireland place names with fjord are spelled -ford. So most irish places with -ford are not river crossings, but coastal inlets named by Vikings. Strangford, Carlingford, Waterford etc.
Lots of people also spell Freyja as Freya.
Even 100 year old English is now somewhat outdated, never mind "Regency" era 200+ years. The 600 year old English is hardly recognisable. Also TxtSpk abbreviations date to the start of the Telegraph, about 170 years ago for electrical and more than 200 years ago for optical (clacks in Terry Pratchett was a real thing even during Napoleonic Wars and the first "wire frauds" were in France on optical (semaphore) telegraphs).
Also the USA is a minority of English speakers.