Sharing about English Lesson

A more standard word would be honking (poster in a North-East Line station).  While horn is often used as a verb in Singapore (e.g. He keeps horning at me), in other varieties of English, the same idea is expressed as to sound the horn or to honk.

No Outside Food

Can you, at a glance, tell whether each abstract (from Kazuo Ishiguro�s When We Were Orphans) is from a British or an American publisher?

The answer is that (a) is from an American publisher (Alfred A. Knopf, 2000) and (b), from a British publisher (Faber & Faber, 2000).

Quotation marks are usually the most obvious clue: Americans prefer double quotes, whereas the British prefer single quotes: compare �interrogating� and �interrogating�, for instance.

A second difference is the placement of the full-stop: compare �such an odd bird at school.� with �such an odd bird at school�.  American practice always has the punctuation inside the quotes, even if a fragment is being quoted (as here), whereas in British practice it depends on whether the punctuation was part of the original quote, a grammatically complete sentence, and so on.

A third clue to (a) being American is the full-stop in St. Dunstan�s: American editorial practice generally uses full-stops in abbreviations; by contrast, modern British practice has largely dispensed with them altogether.  In older British practice, however, full-stops were used in all abbreviations except contractions, i.e. the first and last letters of the full word were retained.  Hence, Dr for doctor but Prof. for Professor.  (However, to avoid confusion, St. was used for street and St for saint.)

Surprisingly, the word judgement in the US edition retains the British spelling, with the e as underlined � perhaps to keep the British identity of the protagonist.  In British English, judgement is used in non-legal contexts, and judgment in legal ones.  Hence, In my judgement, this judge is not qualified to pass judgment on this case (but judgment in both instances in American English).

�ise vs �ize

Are criticize, analyze and televize American spellings?

Some quick answers: criticize is also possible in British English (BrE); analyze is found only in American English (AmE); and televize is possible in neither.

There is a widespread misconception that �ize is AmE and �ise, BrE.  It is worth remembering, however, that �ize has been in the English language since the 16th century � long before the founding of the United States of America as we know it.

While �ize is standard in AmE, it is also used by many BrE writers.  Reputable British publishers such as the Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Longman and Macmillan, and newspapers such The Times, prefer �ize on the grounds that it is closer to the Greek root �izo (whereas �ise is French).

There are many words, however, which cannot, for etymological reasons, be spelt with �ize: advertise, advise, arise, circumcise, compromise, excise, exercise, improvise, incise, merchandise, premise, promise, revise, supervise, surmise, surprise and televise, to name a few.

Another point to note is that words ending in �yse cannot be spelt �yze in BrE, even by writers who prefer �ize: for example, analyse, catalyse, and paralyse.  (These spellings retain the s from the noun forms analysis, catalysis, and paralysis.)  In AmE, however, only �yze is used: analyze, catalyze, paralyze.

Hence, �yze is the only true AmE-only spelling, whereas �ize, though used chiefly in AmE, is hardly an American spelling since it has been in continuous use in BrE for the past five centuries.