On Sat, 6 Oct 2007 12:23:22 +0100, "Nick Gardner"
wrote:

In the Radio Times for today, the synopsis for Robin Hood has ". . .
Knighton Hall is razed to the ground . . ."

Nothing wrong with that as far as I can see.

The only thing I can find wrong with that is that they have spelt 'rased'
with a 'z'.

Being of a certain age I was raised to spell it "razed".


In the last decade or so it has become more common to use the 's' instead of
the 'z' in words such as rased (both are correct) to distinguish British
English from American English, the latter always use 'z'.

Why should we want to distinguish British English spellings from
American English? Would it not be better for everyone if our
spellings converged rather than diverged. I recognize that Americans
have just as much "ownership" of the language as any other
English-speaking peoples, and their spellings and usage are no
"better" or "worse" than ours.

"The Times" has always, to my admittedly uncertain knowledge, always
used the "z" variant in words that end in "ize".

Martin

________________
Nick G
Otter Valley, Devon
83 m amsl
http://www.ottervalley.co.uk