Thursday, May 16, 2013

PS on the Thatcher Biography....

I had one of those nit picky type conversations, which having a bookshop encourages, the other day regarding the spelling of Authorized in the title of Charles Moore's book, Margaret Thatcher The Authorized Biography. So is it spelled with a "z" of an "s"? Which does, rather irritatingly, remind me of that awful Liza Minelli song about Liza with a zee not Lisa with an s cos Lisa with an s goes ssss. But, in a way the song helps because the word authorized should sound like authorized with a zee because otherwise it it would be, phonetically at least, like "authoriced"wouldn't it? Anyway, whatever you and I think the authority on the subject, namely the Oxford English Dictionary, has it with a zed so that's good enough for me. I can't remember the exact episode but I also recall that knowledge of the correct spelling of this type of word once assisted Inspector Morse in solving a murder enquiry. Does any of this matter? Should we just let people spell words like Privatize and Incentivize however they choose and let the English language evolve or should we stand up and eulogize?  Let TBlog know your thoughts....

3 comments:

Paul Bailey said...

American spelling, by the look of it. The yanks can't spell to save their lives, but then have the cheek to try and dictate to us, the cradle of the English language, how certain words should be written.

Microsoft and Google don't help either; but then guess where they're based!

ps. Someone please tell the Americans that the last letter of the alphabet is "zed", NOT "zee".

Tonbridge blogger said...

Sorry PB but you're wrong on this one. Whilst I take the point about the Americanization of the English language actually in the case of Privatized and Authorized etc. this is the OED spelling. You can't get much more English than the Oxford English Dictionary!

Paul Bailey said...

I stand corrected!