The Inside Story on English Spelling by Paquita Boston

Author:Paquita Boston [Boston, Paquita]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: education
Publisher: DoctorZed Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Thomas Nashe verbalizes

During the sixteenth century, when Z was needed to separate price and prize, it was made quite welcome. Why? The word ending, or suffix, -ize was in vogue, specially chosen by one Thomas Nashe (1567–1601), to create verbs. Ize comes from Greek, meaning ‘cause to be, or conform to, or resemble’. Nashe chose it to replace lots of little words with one big one; ‘to place in the care of a hospital’ became ‘to hospitalize’. Because of the Greek origin of Nashe’s suffix its use of the Greek letter Z was accepted by the dictionary committee, e.g. listing recognize, even though the English public preferred recognise, finding Z too strange.

Many technical terms were coined with Nashe’s new verb-suffix, e.g. oxidize and hybridize, as well as the notion of Americanize, and verbs derived from proper names, like mesmerize from Dr Mesmer, the famous Austrian hypnotist. Noah Webster’s American dictionary uses -ize a lot; many Americans are quite fearless of Z.

Almost any noun or adjective can be made into a verb by adding -ize, e.g. finalize, as long as it is not stressed on its last syllable — which is why we do not say corruptize. Once again, we avoid two strong beats together. The verb-suffix -ize is always a stressed syllable, because of its long vowel and strong [z] ending.

The dictionary committee only accepted Nashe’s new word ending on the condition that it did not upset the system of using letters to show a word’s past. So, if the verb was made from nouns that use or have used S, then the dictionary committee insisted on using -ise, not -ize. So, even today, it’s televise not televize, because it comes from the noun television; and advertise because it comes from the French stem avertiss.

This is ridiculous, for how do we know if S is involved somewhere in the word or in its dim, distant past? Similarly, nouns from verbs with S retain S and reject Z, e.g. enterprise from prise. How do we know which came first — noun or verb? In the end children are told to use the suffix -ise at all times to spell [Iz] because -ise is always correct and -ize only sometimes. This, in turn, perpetuates the aversion to Z.

In support of using Z, go ahead and use it. It’s officially OK in all but the following: advise, apprise, chastise, comprise, compromise, demise, despise, devise, franchise, disfranchise, enfranchise, excise, improvise, incise, premise, prise (up), revise, televise, advertise, circumcise, enterprise, exercise, supervise, surmise, surprise, disguise and guise — according to British etymologist and writer, Michael Quinion. And a reminder from the Don of Spelling, it’s finalize not finallize because no twinning is necessary after an unstressed syllable. Then again, Bill Bryson says we don’t even need the word finalize as we have finish; and he queries moisturize, for we already have moisten.

Before we delve deeper into the ramifications of the curse of the dagger let’s remember that it’s what comes before S that can make it spell [z].

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