spell checker...

[Red_John]

very good ed but why is it defaulting to American spelling? e.g. synchronize is ok but synchronise is not!

[ummmm]

The spell checker is on your browser...not AB. You'd need to change it in your settings to EnglishUK..

[Red_John]

ah, I see, just upgraded to Firefox 4.0, didn't realise it had a spell checker in it. Looks like it can't be shifted from American spellings so I'll add the English ones to the dictionary as I go.

[Quizmonster]

'Ize' endings are not just American, John. The old rule - and one still followed by The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the English word-‘bible', as well as American usage - was that words derived from classical Greek with the letter zeta in their suffix were rendered ‘ize' in English...ie retained the ‘z'. So, synchronize is fine, even in British English. The OED simply adds, after synchronize, "also -ise."
However, most modern publishers now prefer the Latinate and more modern ‘ise' for most such words. Thus, normal British usage has ‘organise', ‘apologise' and so on.
Certain words - eg ‘capsize' - are never modified to have an ‘ise' ending. In the same way, there are others - such as ‘disguise', ‘analyse', ‘circumcise', ‘televise', ‘exercise' and ‘chastise' - which are never given an ‘ize' ending.
Apart from the exceptions mentioned above, you are basically free to use whichever form - ise/ize - you prefer!