Customise or Customize ? That is the question.

Not that I am being overly critical but,
In the instances that you use the word ‘CustoMISE’ in the WD program and d/l descriptions or on the d/l website page where I come from it’s spelled ‘CustoMIZE’

The spellings/pronuciations are based on what Brian has been raised with. Just like the word “colour”, which is also in Weather Display.

Exactly, that’s the British English version, but interestingly the word originated in the U.S. http://grammarist.com/spelling/customise-customize/

Yeah, now, wouldnt it be great if you could customi(s/z)e this in WD as well? :smiley:

I had the same problem with color/colour, autumn/fall etc. so I then decided to make two language files for Meteotemplate - one uses British, the other one American English.

I think that’s appropriate for the webpage, do you have two sets of instructions too?

No, wiki is of course only in one “English” and is not even translated to other languages. It is because this changes very often and is nothing a normal visitor to your site will read.

Is it gray or grey ? Dinner or supper ? Potato or potatoe ?

Well…skies have ben grey all day…Time to fix supper…got some baked potatoes wrapped in allll-u-minium foil…

The ise/ize rule is fairly easy to understand according to the Oxford guidelines for authors.

If the word is of Latin origin, it MUST be spelt with a s, e.g. televise, customise, realise etc.
If the word is of Greek origin, it is preferable to spell with a z, e.g. hypothesize, dogmatize etc. but, in the UK, -ise is also acceptable

Here is another poser: in the UK it is usual to spell a list without the ‘Oxford comma’, e.g. oranges, apples and lemons. In the US, it is usual to add the extra comma, e.g. oranges, apples, and lemons. English purists revolt at a comma, acting as a conjunction, being followed by the conjunction ‘and’. The Oxford guidelines suggest that the comma should be added only where it could prevent a confusion, such as in complex alternatives of many words, e.g. oranges, Bramley Seedlings or Cox’s Orange Pippins, and lemons.

Another one: in English, it is usual to quote, “To be or not to be”; in some places, it should be, ‘To be or not to be’. Oxford guidelines recommend the single inverted commas, keeping the double ones for a quotation within a quotation, e.g. The actor said, ‘I detest “to be or not to be”.’.

As George Bernard Shaw said: “England and America are two countries separated by a common language” :wink: #-o

Stuart

I know Oxford say “…is also acceptable”, but in reality it is more like “…is almost universally used”.

Writing technical documents most of time where lists often feature; I tend use an Oxford comma by default nowadays to be consistent.

And Webster has a lot of confusion to answer for :wink:

It is ok if you have two words for the same thing, you simply learn both (as a non-native speaker I probably notice these things more and I remember learning both versions). I could name so many of them…
fridge - refrigerator
lift - elevator
rubber - eraser
Then you have the different spelling, which is also ok, because everyone understands that color is the same as colour. I myself always tend to use the American spelling, simply because it is usually shorter.

The problem arises when one word means different thing.
I can give two examples from real life that happened to me…

Ive been to the US once and I remember that when I came to the hotel, i was told my room is on the second floor. The problem is that if I remember correctly, in the U.S., the ground floor is the first floor, so going to the second floor means going one floor above. Here in Europe, however, we refer to the ground floor as floor 0, so floor two is the same as floor three in the U.S.

And it was also funny when my friends asked me if I want to play football with them… I sort of expected a slightly different game :smiley:

Reminds me a bit of what comedian Steve Martin once said

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_8amMzGAx4