[tei-council] Standardi[s|z]ation

[Lou Burnard]

Further to my rather cryptic comment below: my recommendation is

a) look up the word in the OED
b) if it says that both -IZE and -ISE forms are usable, use the -IZE form.
c) otherwise use the -ISE form.


n 25/02/12 18:42, Lou Burnard wrote:
> Michael Quinnion is good on this, (as on many other things)
>
>    http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ise1.htm
>
> The -IZE suffix only applize to words which (etymologically speaking)
> come to use from a Latinized version of a Greek suffix. That's the
> rationale given by the OED anyway.
>
> I don't think we should be guided by "instinct" here. Look em up.
>
>
> On 25/02/12 18:18, Martin Holmes wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> One of Jens's excellent proofing reports suggests that we standardize
>> spellings ending in -ise/-ize. I'm inclined to agree, and with -ise
>> looking a bit beleaguered these days, I think it should be -ize. Lou
>> agrees, on the ticket.
>>
>> So I ran this regex to see what we have:
>>
>> is((e[d|s]*)|(ing))\b
>>
>> It found 1529 instances, most of which aren't relevant ("otherwise",
>> "raise" etc.). But amongst those which are, they don't all seem clear
>> cut to me, though. I think these are uncontroversial:
>>
>> standardise
>> normalise
>> capitalise
>> specialise
>> summarise
>> computerise
>> italicise
>> recognise
>> regularise
>> categorise
>>
>> But what about these? I feel instinctively less happy with changing
>> these to z, for some reason:
>>
>> harmonise
>> compromise
>> analyse
>> exercise
>> utilise
>>
>> and I think these cannot be changed to z, even though, in many cases,
>> variants with z are attested:
>>
>> comprise
>> revise
>> devise
>> advise
>> excise
>>
>> So what do your instincts tell you about these? Should we basically make
>> a list of words which should use z, and put it in our style guide?
>>
>> Making the changes will be a significant job, because there are
>> instances of similar words in French that mustn't be changed ("utilise",
>> for instance). I think it'll best be done with XSLT (which can be
>> language-aware, and ignore the French) and some very precise regexes.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Martin
>