authoriZed x authoriSed

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No difference in meaning. Just alternative spellings.
 

No difference at all ... only that americans spell it different cos they feel the need to be different .
The correct spelling is with an -s-
authorise , exteriorise , summarise ...
color and not colour ... etc ... you actually pronounce them the same but spell them different if you are twisted.
 
fabiopepper said:
...only that americans spell it different cos they feel the need to be different .The correct spelling is with an -s-...
Click to expand...
Note that, authorize and authorise come from Old French autoriser which comes from Medieval Latin auctorizare. Moreover, there are two groups of -ise words here. ;-)
-ise and ize
The first group consists of words which are always spelled with -ise in all varieties of English. The most frequent verbs in this group are advertise, advise, apprise, chastise, circumcise, comprise, compromise, despise, devise, disguise, excise, exercise, improvise, supervise, surmise, surprise and televise, to which we may add the nouns demise, enterprise, franchise and merchandise, some of which are occasionally used as verbs. These words do not contain the Greek suffix -ize and may never be spelled with -ize. British writers attempting to use American spelling sometimes slip up here and write, for example, *advertize, which is never acceptable. Read more here: 'ise' vs 'ize'
​
The Endings -ise and ize
The broad rule is that the -ize forms are standard in the US, but that -ise ones are now usual in Britain and the Commonwealth in all but formal writing. For example, all British newspapers use the -ise forms; so do most magazines and most non-academic books published in the UK. However, some British publishers insist on the -ize forms (Oxford University Press especially), as do many academic journals and a few other publications (the SF magazine Interzone comes to mind). Most British dictionaries quote both forms, but — despite common usage — put the -ize form first.
​

The original form, taken from Greek via Latin, is -ize. That’s the justification for continuing to spell words that way (it helps that we say the ending with a z sound). American English standardised on the -ize ending when it was universal. However, French verbs from the same Latin and Greek sources all settled on the s form and this has been a powerful influence on British English. The change by publishers in the UK has happened comparatively recently, only beginning about a century ago (much too recently to influence American spelling), though you can find occasional examples of the -ise form in texts going back to the seventeenth century. Read more here: World Wide Words: The endings '-ise' and '-ize'​
All the best. :-D
 
fabiopepper said:

No difference at all ... only that americans spell it different cos they feel the need to be different .
The :?:correct:?: spelling is with an -s-
authorise , exteriorise , summarise ...
color and not colour ... etc ... you actually pronounce them the same but spell them different if you are twisted.
Click to expand...

Smile when you say that. I am as English as they come, but use z spellings when there's an option. The same rule is used by Oxford University Press, and has been the house style of The Times for well over a hundred years.

b

PS - just seen your post Casi. That link is mistaken when it says: 'For example, all British newspapers use the -ise forms'. Check this link: Search Timesonline
 
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fabiopepper said:
No difference at all ... only that americans spell it different cos they feel the need to be different .
The correct spelling is with an -s-
authorise , exteriorise , summarise ...
color and not colour ... etc ... you actually pronounce them the same but spell them different if you are twisted.
Click to expand...

Ooh....feisty.;-)
 
There seems to be some confusion at the Times: there are 585 hits for "authorise", against 34 for "authorize". Their style guide seems to recommend "-ise", except (with no explanation) in some cases such as "synthesizer".

I've noticed a certain amount of inconsistency, recently, in newspapers and magazines: the occasional "-ize" slips through, in an otherwise "-ise" publication, presumably because that's the usage of a particular journalist, and no one has properly proofed the final text.

My own historical impression, for what it's worth, is that "-ise" endings may be found in original texts from Chaucer onwards, especially where the word comes into English from the French; "-ize" predominates, in BrE, by the 19th century; but at the end of the 19th century, there seems to be a movement towards the "-ise" ending, where such was the earliest usage (e.g. "realise"). But "-ise" doesn't predominate in BrE newspapers, etc. until long after the Second World War; and as Bob says, some publishers (Oxford, Cambridge, Penguin) still retain "-ize", with a few exceptions (e.g. advertise, improvise).

MrP
 
BobK said:
[World Wide Words] is mistaken when it says: 'For example, all British newspapers use the -ise forms'. Check this link: Search Timesonline
Click to expand...
Excellent find, Bob. :-D:up: One could say that a portion of those journalists were American (freelance writers), but don't go checking. It's not important. "All" is somewhat suspect, I agree, and so it's good you checked.

Michael Quinion, the author of World Wide Words, would welcome your findings. You should let him know. ;-)
 
I've just found this thread ( and Forum) while having an interesting discussion with a Canadian lawyer who noticed that an English lawyer had changed the word "authorized" to "authorised" in documents he was preparing for me.

Although interesting that Canadians generally follow U.S. English usage, this is obviously an exception. I wonder whether Canadians in the francophone part of the country use the English ( and therefore French influenced) spelling?:-D
 
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