Oxford spelling is one of the three chief ways to spell English. The other two are British and American spelling.
For Oxford spelling the rule is simple:
Prefer the spelling the Oxford dictionary lists first for a given word.
Roughly speaking, Oxford spelling is British spelling with -ize instead of -ise. In computer circles it is called en-GB-oed. On Apple machines and the Chrome Web browser, Canadian English comes the closest.
Who uses Oxford spelling:
- Oxford English Dictionary (OED) – by definition
- Oxford University Press
- Penguin
- United Nations, including UNESCO, WHO and so on
- Amnesty International
- Nature
- Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Interzone
- this blog
How Oxford spelling compares: I chose 14 Oxford spellings from the “Concise Oxford English Dictionary” that are not universal and used Google to compare them to the preferred spelling in 15 countries and 5 news websites:
- Oxford spellings: ageing, aluminium, analyse, centre, fetus, fulfil, haemorrhage, honour, judgement, practising, recognize, spelled, travelling, yogurt.
- With 3 differences:
- Canada (Chrome spell checker): fulfill, hemorrhage, yoghurt (? – both yogurt and yoghurt are counted as misspellings).
- With 4 differences:
- Al Jazeera: foetus, judgment, practicing, recognise.
- Times of India: foetus, judgment, practicing, spelt.
- South Africa: recognise, spelt, practicing, yoghurt.
- Britain, Australia, New Zealand: foetus, recognise, spelt, yoghurt.
- Ireland: foetus, judgment, recognise, yoghurt.
- With 5 differences:
- BBC: foetus, practicing, recognise, spelt, yoghurt.
- The Economist: aluminum, judgment, practicing, recognise, yoghurt.
- Jamaica: aging, fulfill, judgment, practicing, spelt.
- With 6 differences:
- Nigeria: analyze, fulfill, judgment, practicing, spelt, yoghurt.
- Canada: aging, aluminum, fulfill, hemorrhage, judgment, practicing.
- Singapore: aging, fulfill, foetus, judgment, recognise, spelt.
- With 7 differences:
- India, worldwide: aging, analyze, foetus, fulfill, judgment, practicing, spelt.
- Pakistan: aging, aluminum, analyze, fulfill, hemorrhage, judgment, practicing.
- Uganda: aging, foetus, judgment, practicing, recognise, spelt, yoghurt.
- With 8 differences:
-
- Philippines: aging, analyze, center, fulfill, hemorrhage, honor, practicing, traveling.
- With 9 differences:
- With 10 differences:
- America, New York Times, Israel: aging, aluminum, analyze, center, fulfill, hemorrhage, honor, judgment, practicing, traveling.
Notice that most follow neither a pure British nor a pure American spelling.
(By the way, the BBC and the New York Times are the farthest apart: they have only one disputed spelling in common: practicing.)
The main difference between the three spellings concern -our and -ize: recognize and honour. Oxford sides with most of the English-speaking world on those:
honor honour recognise Singapore, The Economist,
Ireland, BBC, Britain, New Zealand, Australia,
Al Jazeera, South Africa, Ugandarecognize America, New York Times, Israel, Philippines OED, this blog, worldwide,
Jamaica, Nigeria, Canada,
Pakistan, India, Times of India
On some other spellings, though, Oxford is outnumbered:
judgment, fulfill, analyze, aging, spelt, foetus, practicing
Which are the Indian spellings. India, it turns out, is the swing vote.
The OED prefers spellings that are closer to a word’s origins: fetus is closer to the original Latin, -ize and analyse to the original Greek and so on.
I follow the Oxford spelling because I use the Oxford dictionary (since it is the best there is). I used to follow The Economist’s spelling, but it is much easier to look up the Oxford spelling for a given word. Also, as even the United Nations recognizes, OED English is the closest thing we have to a world English.
See also:
Interesting observations! But are you sure about the use of “aluminum” by The Economist?
I also like Oxford spelling. I think it’s a good choice if you want to communicate with a global audience.
Here you can find the original request by Michael Everson for the language tag en-GB-oed:
http://www.iana.org/assignments/lang-tags/en-GB-oed
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Anyone know how to enable/import OED spelling in MS Office?
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I believe The Economist uses ‘practising’ and ‘practised’ (reference: http://www.economist.com/style-guide/spellings) – all British publications distinguish between practice (a noun) and practise (a verb). I think the few differences between The Economist and common British spelling is ‘judgment’ instead of ‘judgement’ but both are admissible in the first place, and it uses -ise and -isation instead of the OED’s -ize and -ization. It also uses ‘enroll’ instead of ‘enrol’, which is used more commonly in North America than it is in Britain or Australia, and ‘tricolor’ instead of ‘tricolour’ (although it uses ‘colour’ in every other contexts). So there are differences, but not with the commonest words.
But you’re right about OED spelling being used in lots of UK and international publications; I’ve noticed it in a lot of fiction books published in the UK (as opposed to newspapers which nearly always write ‘realise’ and ‘organise’ instead of ‘realize’ and ‘organize’).
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What’s wrong with american english?
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It aint proper English.
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what is not proper about it?
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Its a bastardization of the Queens English!
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Knock it off.
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LOL
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colour/color, flavor/flavor, This is interesting. I think the English way is the proper way. The Queen’s English.
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*flavor/flavor* Again, the English way is the proper way. I think they even prepare tea properly. I think we Americans are uncouth compared to the English, this is just my opinion.
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Honestly the people on this blog make me wanna shoot myself.
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If it is any consolation Bobby, English cookery is worse than Irish cookery. I don’t mind the corned beef hash!
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as long as it’s not haggis, or steak and kidney pie!
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@v8driver: LOL!
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A gallifmaufry of philological delights for logophiles and orthographers.
pauciloquent :brief in speech. v8driver is paucilogent .
borborygmus: long-winded word for an eructation or tummy rumble.
scurryfunge: hurriedly tidying one’s house before the cleaner arrives.
Would callypygian or steatopygous best describe Kim Kardashian’s bum implants? She is like an ecdysiast : a “stripper” , showing her crena;the crease between the buttocks. She is fastidious about the dipilation of her fundament, since she is dasypygal : having “hairy buttocks”
(one of my favourites) tappen: the leafy plug a bear seals up its behind for winter.
nudiustertian is not a martian nudist, but the day before yesterday.
hippotomist: an accomplished horse-dissector
aristotle: slang for “bottle”
eyewater: “Tsk,please don’t give me those white woman’s eyewater.”
blatherskite: someone who won’t stop talking utter rubbish, e.g. Donald Trump
merkin: wig for pubic hair. Since Donald Trump is vaunting about his big penis, perhaps he uses his roadkill merkin as a toupe.
tittynope: a small quantity of something left over, not saying no to the breasts.
bezoar: a small hard mass that forms in an animals stomach.Scar thought Simba was a big trichobezoar. “hairball”.
If your teacher tells you that antidisestablishmentarianism: “opposition to disestablishment of the Church of England,” is the longest word in the dictionary, that is incorrect, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is.
Doctor to ex-warden on Robben Island: “I am sorry to tell you that you have pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, which is a lung disease that is caused by inhaling harmful silcia dust which you were exposed to from the lime stone quarry.
floccinaucinihilipilification is the second longest word in the English language. It means an estimation of something as worthless.
“They happen to produce huge billion dollar differences over seven years in the federal budget, which is why they become fairly incendiary as the debate goes along. But if you—as a practical matter of estimating the economy, the difference is not great. There’s a little bit of floccinaucinihilipilification going on here.”
Mike McCurry, United States President Bill Clinton’s press secretary (December 6, 1995 press briefing).
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So embarrassed: I am a bad typist and my grammar and punctuation is not 100%, but I really hate making spelling errors:
corrections:
v8driver is pauciloquent.
callipygian
depilation
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@taotesan: Pauciloquent: That’s a great word. I love learning the definitions of new words. Well we can never use that word to describe your post. (LOL). I love reading your post no shade there. Are you an aspiring writer?
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@Mary Burrell
I would say that you are brilliantly pauciloquent 🙂
Thank you for thinking I might be an aspiring writer. No, I am a sculptor and mature student, but mostly support myself and daughter by selling sportswear at the moment.
This post was set off by Abagond’s post on the paragraph and Afrofem’s use of ‘garrulous’ when addressing Gro Jo.
I simply love words.
I was quite gormless and shy at school and would say stupid things like: ‘Don’t be so pugnacious’. I was told very quickly where to get off.
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I especially love combining loquaciousness with vulgarity!
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@ Herneith
“I especially love combining loquaciousness with vulgarity!”
And with delicious irreverence- I love it.
I have learnt that the Koch Candidate, that orange troglodyte, actually does not wear a road-kill merkin, but sports a comb-over.
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Hey, I love troglodytes, if only these miscreants actually dwelled in caves! We wouldn’t have to deal with them! As for merkins, I ain’t gonna go there!
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Oxford pressing in only King James Version bible.
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