By Mary Morel
In Australian and New Zealand English, there seems to be a lot of ‘-ize’ (e.g. organize) spelling creeping into Aussie English.
Some people now seem to think it is okay to use ‘-ize’ selectively for words such as organization that are used a lot.
I agree, ‘-ize’ is being used quite a bit, which I think is partly because Microsoft Word so often defaults to US spelling. But I think we should use ‘-ise’ because it is the more common Australian and New Zealand usage.
There is an interesting article on this topic at World Wide Words.
PS Some Australian writers choose to use ‘-ize’ if they are writing for a scientific or international audience.
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- WriteAussie – some Australian and American spelling differences
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