You might not 'realiSe' that it's time to 'apologiSe'.

I’ve come across this issue a number of times now, so thought I would raise it. Although I currently live in New Zealand, I was raised in England and West Germany and did my English degree in Wales. Throughout my education, I was taught what was loosely termed ‘Queen’s English’ which involved much more use of the letter ‘s’ than ‘z’.

 

In the years before I began publishing, I would happily read everything that I could get my hands on. Yes, reading books by American authors was at first strange, the prolific use of ‘z’ was initially jarring to the eye - realize instead of realise, but it wasn’t difficult to put these anomalies to one side in favour of the general enjoyment of the novel. I love the colloquialisms which inherently creep into a story through the author’s hands because the writer is after all, a huge part of the evolution of the plot, characters and the very atmosphere which enfolds the reader. A quaint turn of phrase can indicate to an astute reader where the author hails from, how they feel personally about a particular issue and what kinds of experience prompted certain parts of the plot. Those are the very things that readers pick up on and head straight for when they meet you and often, your input as the author is what drives them to read more as they revel in your story and try to understand you.

The first time I came up against the dreaded ‘s’ versus ‘z’ war, was when I began doing paid reviews for an international review company. They complimented me on my first review for them, but alluded to the editing issues. Now everyone lets one drop occasionally. It doesn’t matter how many times I proofread my own work, something still slips through. So I asked for a list of what exactly was wrong and up it popped. I had used the word ‘apologise’ and it needed to be corrected to ‘apologize’. There were a few more ‘errors’ including ‘realise’, and it was quickly obvious that the relationship was not going to survive the distance between our understanding of grammar rules.

To their credit, the company actually emailed me back, acknowledged that they were an international company accepting novels from all over the globe and having an English woman on the team was probably a good thing. I still write for them and they humour me. Or do they humor me?

 

The next time it happened was when I wrote a blog for someone. They thought it was great, again, but for the editing. They altered it for me and I was surprised at the sense of mortification I experienced. The English language originates from my homeland of England. I don’t have a problem with the fact that it has evolved and changed in its lifetime, or that other nations have borrowed it and changed it. But I began to feel like my beautiful, archaic, expressive tongue was being cauterised and thrown out.

It raised its head again when I published Artefact, as it was originally titled. The wonderful author who gave her time to help me release it, debated back and forth with me about whether it was artefact or artifact. The book was set in England I argued, and we spell it artefact. But, she replied, you publish in the American market and we spell it artifact. I relented and changed it and haven’t regretted it. The novel sells really well in Amazon.com and readers seem to love it. In addition to that, she made me a gorgeous cover and gave me lots of fantastic help. Who could argue with that?

But as for changing the way I write, wouldn’t that be a bit like trying to fake a foreign accent, whilst not being particularly comfortable with it? It’s just not me so why would I do it? I like the way that Her Majesty speaks and I can guarantee that if I could grab a peek at her Christmas Day speech, she would have used realise and apologise and there wouldn’t be a ‘z’ in sight!

Being a UK English writer, without the added fact that I don’t reside in England, I am in a relative minority compared to the vast offerings from the US continent. But the English language itself isn’t quite as small fry as US editors and publishing companies would try and have me believe. I wish I knew the statistics of the ratio of realise to realize users, because then I could do a pretty graph and look intelligent on the subject. I know English writers raised in the huge continent of Africa, who spell words like me and to the best of my knowledge, definitely New Zealand and possibly Australian schools teach UK English. That's a fair hunk of land mass that agrees with moi.

To have a crack at my cultural heritage, which yes, my spelling of certain words is part of, is akin to me walking up to a Maori and telling them that their spelling of the word for family - whanau - is actually a bit rubbish. Not only would it be rude and disrespectful, it would undoubtedly upset them and I would be in big trouble.

So why shouldn’t I get defensive and upset, when beaten with the broad stick which shouts, ‘Let’s all be the same - my same, not yours?’ Just because I don’t spell something the same as you, doesn’t make me wrong, but if we want to play the ‘etched on the face of history game’, then I will win hands down. Realise has been around a damn sight longer than realize, I’ll have you know!

I guess the long and short of it is this: judge my work, judge my skill as an author and feel free to review my books. But at no point does that give anyone the right to disrespect the greatest representative of my cultural heritage - my language.

 

It’s mine. I love it. So back off!