Submitted by Albion (not verified) on Mon, 07/04/2008 - 12:42pm.
Well, to be true and faithful to my upbringing as a young boy in England in the 60s and 70s I should have written the word with an 's', and been rightly told off by the teacher. Then it seemed so clear and easy. But, things change and presumably the language changes to: it is not so black and white. I notice in my Oxford that they do not make a distinction between the two spellings (US or UK). Perhaps, consistency is the keyword. Even so, I don't really emphasis(z)e the small difference in spelling (to get them to write anything is amaz(s?)ing!). However, if they say 'vacation', I say, oh no, no, no, we don't say that in British English. It's 'holiday'.
Have u noticed that with coming of emails th standard of Englis has plummet_ed? Some of my students think it's all right (alright) to use 'Hi' when they write formal emails to companies. Well, there is still plenty of work out there.
'z' or 's'
Well, to be true and faithful to my upbringing as a young boy in England in the 60s and 70s I should have written the word with an 's', and been rightly told off by the teacher. Then it seemed so clear and easy. But, things change and presumably the language changes to: it is not so black and white. I notice in my Oxford that they do not make a distinction between the two spellings (US or UK). Perhaps, consistency is the keyword. Even so, I don't really emphasis(z)e the small difference in spelling (to get them to write anything is amaz(s?)ing!). However, if they say 'vacation', I say, oh no, no, no, we don't say that in British English. It's 'holiday'.
Have u noticed that with coming of emails th standard of Englis has plummet_ed? Some of my students think it's all right (alright) to use 'Hi' when they write formal emails to companies. Well, there is still plenty of work out there.
Are you English or Australian?
www.albionenglish.com
Nicholas