Talk:Living in a Ghost Town

Criticizing or Criticising
Which is the correct spelling. GoodDay (talk) 16:13, 10 December 2023 (UTC)


 * This article uses Oxford spelling, which is -ize. See Manual of Style/Spelling/Words ending with "-ise" or "-ize". ―Justin ( koa v f ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:19, 10 December 2023 (UTC)
 * It's an article about a British subject so should use the variant more widely used in British English. While the OED accepts both variants, criticise is by far the predominant spelling in Br. English and -ize is generally viewed, correctly or otherwise, as US English (it isn't, but -ise the widely used form). Oxford is something of an outlier in this respect, as with things like the Oxford comma; almost any publication, company or newspaper style guide in the UK would require -ise. Wikipedia's MoS makes it clear that language in articles should be consistent (Br. spelling is used elsewhere in the article) and that articles with a tie to a specific country should use the style of that country. My contention is that while both variants are accepted, the version with the (by far) wider use in Britain should be used.Neilinabbey (talk) 16:25, 10 December 2023 (UTC)
 * cf. Use Oxford spelling, MOS:VAR, and MOS:RETAIN. It is unacceptable to change English varieties that are established without prior consensus . ―Justin ( koa v f ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:28, 10 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Now that you've both had your say it would be a good idea to stand back and let others have their say. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:37, 10 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Either spelling is perfectly acceptable, but per MOS:RETAIN the long standing use of 'criticizing' should be retained until there is a consensus to change it on the talk page. Personally I would prefer to change it, but not strongly: Oxford spelling is a perfectly acceptable variant but a slightly unusual one, even within the University of Oxford (which I know well). Jonathan A Jones (talk) 16:51, 10 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Given the far greater majority of -ise usage in UK English I would prefer to see it be changed, especially since we are talking about one occurrence of a single word, which I don’t think is capable of establishing “consistency” as discussed in MOS:RETAIN. Celjski Grad (talk) 19:28, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

They're both correct for British English, and -ise should not be enforced as the One True Spelling. In fact, they're both still productive. This must have been hashed out on the manual of style talk pages several hundred times, by now, surely? Special:Diff/617099087 seems to bear out that we've had this discussion at least once. If the person actually doing the article writing work has decided upon Oxford spelling (which is a bit of a misnomer since it isn't confined to Oxford), don't go style-warrioring it to something else. Uncle G (talk) 00:32, 11 December 2023 (UTC)