Family Historian User Group

Why does a UK based product such as FH insist on using Americanisms, I wonder?
e.g. The Standardized (modern) name field in Place records.

Mervyn

[EDIT by Mike Tate: This thread is a spin off from Current and Historical Place names (13536).]

Mervyn,

Why does a UK based product insist on using Americanisms, I wonder?

Being an American, I'm curious what is the Americanism to which you refer?

Ron

Also being American and new to FH after migrating from TMG I like that this program seems to bridge both British and American needs. This broad approach should be good for all. Hope the developers keep making a broad approach since family research for us Americans often reverts back to the Continent.

Ron,

"Being an American, I'm curious what is the Americanism to which you refer?"

What I was referring to was the unusual use of a US English spelling appearing instead of British English in the software interface, i.e. Standardized (US English) vs Standardised (British English). Ideally, of course, spellings appearing in software interfaces should properly reflect the system language set on the computer being used. That way the software is friendlier to all users. It's just an irritation that comes from a lifetime spent proofreading and 'correcting' spelling and grammar in official reports, letters etc., which is now, thankfully, part of a past life!

Mervyn

OK, now I recognize (recognise) the issue to which you were referring.

ronk wrote:... recognize (recognise) ...

Putting my tongue in my cheek, it's unwise to be too pedantic about these spelling things - the OED has a 1669 (London) usage of the z-spelling in one usage section, though the s-spellings in that section do come in at 1555!

But we do seem to tend towards the s-spelling over here, these days, rather than the zed-spelling - or is it zee-spelling?

The "-ize" ending is derived from Greek and Latin, so hardly an Americanism.

The original spelling was -ize (something to do with the etymology being Greek rather than Latin), but the idea of a "correct" spelling was always a little more fluid until the later 1600s and -ise was a frequent alternative (a quick glance through parish baptismal registers shows that). Consequently, both the -ise and -ize spellings are now equally acceptable in British English, whereas American English doesn't recognise -ise as standard.

The fixing of American English on -ize, and the abundance of -ise in British English, gave rise to the misconception that -ise is the only correct British spelling, and that the -ize spelling is a change introduced into American more recently, like -our to -or, -re to -er, or -borough/-burgh to -burg. This has created a sort of feedback loop, where the British rejection of American orthography causes the -ise spelling to become more and more commonplace in the UK, reinforcing the rejection of the "American" -ize.

The above nothwithstanding, and despite having an American wife and a languages degree that tells me the -ize spelling is pefectly legitimate, I must admit to finding it jarring. It may be dialectal jingoism, but I only ever use -ise myself.

mjashby wrote:Why does a UK based product insist on using Americanisms, I wonder?
Mervyn

Why did you make this throwaway comment? It has split this thread into two sub-threads one of which would be more at home in the General forum for off-topic discussions. Ize getting tired of looking at the new posts with a less that 100% expectation that it would have to do with Place names.

David

Well, now it's been (justifiably) spun off - does anyone else find that their Victorian era English BMD certificates very often spell "labourer" as "laborer"? I'd be inclined to think my local Registrar has an American doing the (hand-written) extractions who can't break the habit of a life-time, but I'm sure I've also seen it in censuses?

At the risk of sounding "too American" though of British descent from a progenitor of the 1600s, perhaps all of this discussion is: Much Ado About Nothing?

I'll be more than happy for Simon to put in a spell checker that has all English/UK based spellings! No problem.

Just saying ---