About this piece

The English language is constantly evolving. To address your target market with authority, ensure you recognise when 'realise' should be 'realize' and you know a cow pat from a cow pie. . .

© Sarah Powell, 2007 

Which English?
by Sarah Powell

The constant evolution of English is both a challenge and an attraction. Moulded, adopted, adapted and enriched (or impoverished, say some) over the centuries, the language is being shaped and changed more rapidly than ever before. As Melvyn Bragg wrote in The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language, a fifteen-hundred-year story of its development, 'English is the collective work of millions of people'.

The language's fascinating and ever increasing array of sounds, tones, accents and imageries from cultures across the world has been boosted by population trends and movements, trade, travel, the reach of the media and particularly the internet. Inevitably American English is rapidly gaining in influence but there is also growth in another English - a sort of multi-stranded common language of convenience; a global English evolving organically through both use and 'misuse'. Going further, in The Future of English? David Graddol suggests that 'rather than a process which leads to uniformity and homogeneity, globalisation seems to create new, hybrid forms of culture, language and political organisation'.

In its most recent 2007survey of the world's top ten internet users by language, Internet World Stats estimates that 329 million or 30 per cent of all internet users are English speakers or readers. The next largest category is the Chinese with 159 million or 14 per cent of users, followed by 89 million Spanish speakers, 8 per cent of users, and then 86 million Japanese, 7.7 per cent of users.

Even at this early stage of transition, and considering the clear differences between established British and American English, such a 'living', changing language poses challenges for writers and editors as well as for those learning the language. Different pronunciations, spellings and meanings for the same word (or the same pronunciation for different words) can make life difficult. Choices can be confusing, but with care, they can also be useful in transmitting a message effectively.

So, what sort of choices? Well, take spellings of verbs such as organize/organise, specialize or specialise, commercialize or commercialise (but only ever advertise!) and the nouns that go with them. Why the difference? Chambers Concise lists the 's' form first, giving 'z' as an alternative. The Oxford Concise does the opposite. The New Oxford Spelling Dictionary: The Writers' and Editors' Guide to Spelling and Word Division states that the 's' form is a 'British variant'.

Certainly the 's' form has long been the norm in the UK and is still widely used and taught in schools. Yet editorial practice increasingly recommends the 'z' form - which many traditionalists reject, claiming this is an Americani(s)(z)ation. Intriguingly, The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles notes that the noun organization can be traced back to Late Middle English, and that the 'z' form of both noun and verb were used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Britain. So was George Eliot, who wrote of 'Choice organisations. . .', responsible for the change. . .?

To complicate things further, advertise - also of Late Middle English origin - never takes the 'z' in either British or American English, while analyse (possibly from the Greek via French) is always spelled with an 's' in British English but with a 'z' in American English.

Then how about practise/ce? The 's' spelling denotes the verb in British English while the 'c' spelling gives the noun - but in American English 'c' spelling is used for both noun and verb. . . This different spelling also affects words such as licence/se. Confused? So are generations of British schoolchildren. And to confuse us all, while the Brits have defence, the Americans prefer defense.

Then of course there are the many other British vs. American spelling variations, giving us colour/color, favour/favor, adviser/advisor, programme/program (although for computer programs Britain follows America), analogue, catalogue and dialogue versus analog, catalog and dialog, centre/center, theatre/theater, grey/gray, mould/mold, speciality/specialty, tyre/tire, sulphur/sulfur, encyclopaedia/encylopedia (and likewise anaesthesia/, archaeology/ and paediatrics/), aluminium/aluminum and got/gotten. In British English words like travel or label take a double 'l' in travelling and travelled - but not in American English.

There are also words that can be considered distinctly 'regional' such as pavement in the UK versus sidewalk in the USA; postcode against zip code; tarmac vs. asphalt; underground or tube vs. subway; shopping centre vs. mall; cinema vs. movies; holidays vs. vacation; corpse vs. cadaver; estate agent vs. realtor/real estate agent; nappy vs. diaper, petrol vs. gas; biscuit vs. cookie; cow pat vs. cow pie. . .

So, what's best for business communications? Well, there would seem to be three main choices - and each has its merits. If writing for a global business readership, a logical move given current trends would be to adopt American English throughout. If writing for more traditional British, Indian, African or Australasian English-speaking markets and non-business readers, British English spellings and the 's' form may be better received and have the benefit that the writer need not worry about potential errors of spelling of advertise and analyse. For a British business and management readership, it might be appropriate to opt for that Oxford Concise-recommended Late Middle English 'z' form, but to keep all other British spellings.

There is no merit in having a war over words when we can ponder them, select them, and use them as we wish to express and transmit a wide range of messages to diverse audiences. As Humpty Dumpty said to Alice in Through the Looking Glass: 'When I use a word, . . . it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.' 'The question is,' said Alice,' whether you can make words mean so many different things.' An intriguing question!

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