realise/realize - spelling question

[pagey3]

does anyone know the correct english UK spelling of words such as Realise - is it with an 's' or a 'z'? I am sure I was told by my english techer that the 'z' is an americanism, but in dictionaries it gives both spellings as an option.  Is there any rule about this or isit just personal preference?

[barender]

The OED spells it 'realize' although I also seem to remember my teacher telling me the same as you. I don't think there are any rules but that nowadays both versions are normally accepted as correct.

[HeratthePC]

Both are acceptable, although 's' is the UK version and 'z' is the Americanised version.

[Quizmonster]

The old rule - and one still largely followed by The Oxford English Dictionary (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. 

However, many modern publishers - including �The Times' newspaper - 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' and �chastise' - which are never given an �ize' ending, because they have a letter sigma rather than a zeta even in their Greek forms. 

Apart from the exceptions mentioned above, you are basically free to use whichever form - ise/ize - you prefer!  Only...be consistent.

[RevShirls]

Excellent answer by Quizmonster. I totally agree. Having said that I live in Sweden now and for a wee bit of extra cash I do proofreading for the Political Science department in the local university. Many of their documents have to be written in English for international conferences and publications. Many of them have had manuscripts returned in the past because they have used American English (behavior instead of behaviour etc). They often get confused over -ize and -ise, so recently I have recommended that we stick with the Latinate -ise (apart from the certain words that Quizmonster referred to). Consistency is definitely important here.