It's really a Greek vs. French difference, rather than an American vs. British one. I prefer -ize, but either spelling is acceptable to me. Being a spelling

It's really a Greek vs. French difference, rather than an American vs. British one. I prefer -ize, but either spelling is acceptable to me. Being a spelling pedant isn't a good idea, because unless you're an etymologist, you'll often get it wrong. (Sometimes mistakes even become Standard English, e.g. "ptarmigan", "sovereign", and "burgle" in UK.) Then there's the issue of Latin and Greek plurals. If you don't know those languages well enough, with a few exceptions (e.g. "crises", "phenomena") it's safer to just add -s or -es to the end of the word in English.