ise or ize, I can't decide can you?

Being somewhat of a nerd as far as grammar is concerned it's long disappointed the hell out of me that there has appeared to be a steady rise in the use of the word personalized instead of what I say is a lot more correct personalised. This arrived at a head when Google presented its new Search engines Instant search facility which, if you didn't already know, displays a drop down of possible search keywords as you type in the search box. I was incensed as i started typing in a search for personalised gifts only got to the first 's' when up came the suggestion personalized gifts, without any mention of the my intended query. I immediately put this to the inexorable Americanisation (Americanization?) in the English language along with the fact that the origins of Google are securely rooted on the other side of the Atlantic. Given that I've had a long time on my hands over the past few days I decided to try and do some research into the personalized / personalised issue and have put together a few startling information.

Within the English language there arises either styles of spelling, utilizing -ise and -ize. Actually the suffix -ize derives from the Gr[eek] -??e?? and L[atin] -izare and for that reason is far more deep seated within our language than -ise which derives in 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 also have a better grip on personalised over personalized, their ratio is 3:1 in favour of the -ise suffix which means this may be the last bastion of the personalised gift before the personalized gift gets control.

My last say about the matter is that based upon this information I have possibly been completely wrong all this time (ouch) and that it's not been our American relatives that were trying to bastardize (?) our language it is just us British who're being soft minded. Cheers!

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