subject: Personalised or Personalized, the truth is out [print this page] Personalised or Personalized, the truth is out
Being somewhat of a nerd as far as grammar is concerned it has long annoyed the hell out of me that there has appeared to be a steady increase in the use of the word personalized in preference to what I consider to be the more correct personalised. This came to a head when Google rolled out its new Google Instant search facility which, if you didn't already know, displays a drop down of possible search keywords as you type into the search box. I was incensed when I started typing in a search for personalised gifts and had only got to the first 's' when up came the suggestion personalized gifts, without any reference to my intended query. I immediately put this down to the inexorable Americanisation (Americanization?) of the English language and the fact that the origins of Google are firmly planted on the other side of the Atlantic. Given that I have had some time on my hands over the past few days I decided to do some research into the personalized / personalised issue and have come up with some startling facts.
In the English language there occurs both styles of spelling, both with and -ise and -ize. In fact the suffix -ize derives from the Gr[eek] - and L[atin] -izre and therefore is far more deep seated in our language than -ise which derives from the French -iser. The famous 18th century lexicographer Noah Webster denounced the use of -ise in favour of -ize as it was more etymologically and phonetically correct. The current ratio of -ise to -ize in the British National Corpus stands at 3:2 so the balance is a lot more finely drawn than I initially thought. The Australians actually have a better grip on personalised over personalized, their ratio is 3:1 in favour of the -ise suffix so this may be the last bastion of the personalised gift before the personalized gift takes over.
My final say on the matter is that based upon this information I have probably been wrong all this time (ouch) and that it has not been our American cousins that have been trying to bastardize (?) our language it is just us British who are being bloody minded. Cheers!
