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Canadian here. I use American spellings wherever they make sense and don't gratuitously mess with the Latin roots. Such as "behavior", "neighbor". But: "cent

Canadian here. I use American spellings wherever they make sense and don't gratuitously mess with the Latin roots. Such as "behavior", "neighbor". But: "centre" and not "center" (it's from Latin "centrum": the R goes after the T, and there is no need whatsoever to revise that.) The shift to Z in the -ise Latin-derived suffix is not just in American English. European languages are split about it. For instance, let's look at "to synthesize" German: synthetisieren French: synthétiser Dutch: syntetisere But: Polish: syntetyzować Hungarian: szintetizálni Italian: sintetizzare Romanian: sintetiza I think the sound is Z in all of them? It's partly a question of whether the orthography of the language uses S for a Z sound or not. If they don't have that feature in their orthography then they don't have the choice of retaining an S spelling with a Z sound.

Aloisius 11mo ago
> (it's from Latin "centrum": the R goes after the T, and there is no need whatsoever to revise that.) Why does it matter how it was spelled in Latin? English is not Latin. In the era of ubiquitous access to dictionaries, I'm not sure the benefits of having spelling reflect etymology rather than pronunciation outweigh the cost.
- kazinator 11mo ago
  The first part of my argument is this: the word centrum still has a cognate in numerous modern languages, which use the TR letter order: French: centre Italian: centro Czech: centrum # identical to Latin! Swedish: centrum [... numerous others ...] The "TR" order of the letters in the "centrum" cognate is still alive in modern languages and their orthography, and so is even the "centrum" word itself. The second part of my argument is that some contemporary dialects of English itself, like British and Canadian, use "centre"; using the "centre" spelling is a contemporary practice, and not a retrogression toward Latin. The third part of my my argument is that changing "centre" to "center" is a gratuitous change that brings no benefit; it has no redeeming value.
  - Aloisius 11mo ago
    Spelling it center provides the significant benefit of removing foreign orthography from English, making it easier to learn to read and write. I see no value spelling it centre. That some other languages spell the word doesn't matter as they're pronouncing it without a vowel between the t and r which is rather different than English. In French it's pronounced santr. In Italian it's sen-tro. In Czech it's tsen-troom. In Swedish it's sen-trum. Languages that, like English, pronounce it with a vowel between the t and r? They spell it that way. In Albanian it's qendër pronounced very close to rhotic English sen-ter. In Norweigian it's senter (sen-ta) which is pretty close to non-rhotic English. In Croation, it's centar (sen-tar). In Lombard it's center. In Swedish, the other word for center (meaning a center (place) or sports position) is spelled... center. And even Czech, which spells it centrum, changes the spelling to center in the genitive plural, to match the pronunciation. So even if we're going to choose spelling based on other languages, there's plenty that spell it similarly to center to argue for it in English - though I would still argue that other people are doing it isn't a compelling argument.
    - kazinator 11mo ago
      According to Etymonline (i.e. Douglas Harper), quite curiously, the "center" speling in English is actually older! Quote: The spelling with -re was popularized in Britain by Johnson's dictionary (following Bailey's), though -er is older and was used by Shakespeare, Milton, and Pope. At the same time, it Etymonline traces the origin to Old French (14th century) which had it as centre. Just because Milton, Pope and Shakespeare wrote "center" doesn't mean it was a good idea. The latter couldn't spell his own name the same way twice!
      - Aloisius 11mo ago
        It's a good idea because spelling words how they're pronounced was one of the biggest achievements of the Western world and our broken orthography impairs literacy. Only English has this insanity driven by people who simply don't like change, like the aesthetics of older spellings, or because they're a closet francophiles/latinophiles like Johnson, but try to justify it with nonsense about etymology because how weak the personal preference argument is.
palata 11mo ago
> I think the sound is Z in all of them? It's partly a question of whether the orthography of the language uses S for a Z sound or not. I'm confused here. What you call "the Z sound" in "synthetisieren" or "synthétiser" does not sound the same as "the Z sound" in "sintetizzare", for instance. The letters Z and S both exist in those languages, but they pronounced differently.

Aloisius 11mo ago

> (it's from Latin "centrum": the R goes after the T, and there is no need whatsoever to revise that.) Why does it matter how it was spelled in Latin? English is not Latin. In the era of ubiquitous access to dictionaries, I'm not sure the benefits of having spelling reflect etymology rather than pronunciation outweigh the cost.

kazinator 11mo ago
The first part of my argument is this: the word centrum still has a cognate in numerous modern languages, which use the TR letter order: French: centre Italian: centro Czech: centrum # identical to Latin! Swedish: centrum [... numerous others ...] The "TR" order of the letters in the "centrum" cognate is still alive in modern languages and their orthography, and so is even the "centrum" word itself. The second part of my argument is that some contemporary dialects of English itself, like British and Canadian, use "centre"; using the "centre" spelling is a contemporary practice, and not a retrogression toward Latin. The third part of my my argument is that changing "centre" to "center" is a gratuitous change that brings no benefit; it has no redeeming value.
- Aloisius 11mo ago
  Spelling it center provides the significant benefit of removing foreign orthography from English, making it easier to learn to read and write. I see no value spelling it centre. That some other languages spell the word doesn't matter as they're pronouncing it without a vowel between the t and r which is rather different than English. In French it's pronounced santr. In Italian it's sen-tro. In Czech it's tsen-troom. In Swedish it's sen-trum. Languages that, like English, pronounce it with a vowel between the t and r? They spell it that way. In Albanian it's qendër pronounced very close to rhotic English sen-ter. In Norweigian it's senter (sen-ta) which is pretty close to non-rhotic English. In Croation, it's centar (sen-tar). In Lombard it's center. In Swedish, the other word for center (meaning a center (place) or sports position) is spelled... center. And even Czech, which spells it centrum, changes the spelling to center in the genitive plural, to match the pronunciation. So even if we're going to choose spelling based on other languages, there's plenty that spell it similarly to center to argue for it in English - though I would still argue that other people are doing it isn't a compelling argument.
  - kazinator 11mo ago
    According to Etymonline (i.e. Douglas Harper), quite curiously, the "center" speling in English is actually older! Quote: The spelling with -re was popularized in Britain by Johnson's dictionary (following Bailey's), though -er is older and was used by Shakespeare, Milton, and Pope. At the same time, it Etymonline traces the origin to Old French (14th century) which had it as centre. Just because Milton, Pope and Shakespeare wrote "center" doesn't mean it was a good idea. The latter couldn't spell his own name the same way twice!
    - Aloisius 11mo ago
      It's a good idea because spelling words how they're pronounced was one of the biggest achievements of the Western world and our broken orthography impairs literacy. Only English has this insanity driven by people who simply don't like change, like the aesthetics of older spellings, or because they're a closet francophiles/latinophiles like Johnson, but try to justify it with nonsense about etymology because how weak the personal preference argument is.

palata 11mo ago

> I think the sound is Z in all of them? It's partly a question of whether the orthography of the language uses S for a Z sound or not. I'm confused here. What you call "the Z sound" in "synthetisieren" or "synthétiser" does not sound the same as "the Z sound" in "sintetizzare", for instance. The letters Z and S both exist in those languages, but they pronounced differently.