Thread

Just facing a lil dilema at the moment whereby thinking of a name for a new app that we are releasing and not certain on the best way to spell the following word in it:

Organizer or Organiser

I figured this is quite an international forum so might be good to see other suggestions on preferred spelling for an international english format.

Being a natural advocate of UK english I would sway towards ‘s’ for sure. Now I must outline my decision process to eliminate being biased - You mention international English? the US version of English is the only one to supplant s with z in certain words (correct me if i’m wrong). Most, if not all, old collonial countries prefer UK English. Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and even Canada.

I’ll be the counterpoint.  I used to live in the US, so my intuition tells me ‘z’.  Now on to the research: A simple google search for both words reveals that ‘organizer’ garners three times more results than ‘organiser’, so it appears to be more common.  And in raw numbers, the US easily has more internet users than all other english speaking countries combined.  Which gives it the second largest internet user base in the world (after China).

On the other hand, clever marketing to point out the ‘s’ to americans gives you less competition in the search market, which is always a good thing.

Using the Z is lazy, use the S because that is the correct spelling. American English is just lazy english is you ask me…

Using the Z is lazy, use the S because that is the correct spelling. American English is just lazy english is you ask me…

That’s a bit crude to put it like that, but I kind of agree though.

I think you need to consider your target audience: do you want to create a laid back, easy and modern app, you should go for the z. If you’re working on something clean, semantically correct, standardised and what not, go for the s.

0.02$

And if you want to make it “Web 2.0” compliant, call it Organizr 😊
Just kidding - I voted for the “z”

Thanks for all the advice guys - decided to go with the ‘s’ as not only is it what seems to cover more continents the domain was available whereas ‘z’ wasnt 😛

Heres a sneak peek as well 😉

Worganiser

Thanks for all the advice guys - decided to go with the ‘s’ as not only is it what seems to cover more continents the domain was available whereas ‘z’ wasnt 😛

Heres a sneak peek as well 😉

Worganiser

just what i have been looking for, submitted me email address.

its spelled with a Z not an S

Another vote for the “s” rather than the “z”.  I tend to prefer the “British” spellings in general, and this is no exception.  I agree with a previous poster; from my experience the standard in the majority of English speaking countries is “s” and those learning English in Europe and Africa seem to use this spelling.  Someone else may have a different experience though?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Spelling_Board

The SSB, an American organization in the early years of the 20th century, sought to consolidate English spelling for the purposes of clarity in international communication. The organization was far more effective in furthering their views in the United States than abroad, and their proposed simplifications were to use ‘Z’ when the “zee” sound appears so as to distinguish it from the “s” sound. Phonetically, the two sounds are identical, but one involves the use of the vocal chords (‘Z’), while the other does not.

Generally, I find the Z spelling more correct; the more differentiation between word spellings, the better, and the closer a spoken English word is to its spelling, the better. They are also responsible for the more-intuitive “theater” (compared to theatre) and color (colour). These words, and the general class of words they belong to, are counterintuitive in British English.

Objectively, though, one shouldn’t become too obsessed with minor spelling differences like that. Standardized spelling is a fairly new practice in the history of language, and there’s a lot of reason to believe that standardized spelling has actually reduced the expressive capability of the languages that use it. We would generally consider “aks” as an incorrect form of “ask” (“Let me aks you a question”), but middle English sources use both forms and sometimes in different contexts. Further, there are stylistic rules that nobody here would know about, that only a well-schooled copy editor would ever pick up. If you’re writing a web site for copy editors, you should know the rules so as to not look stupid, but most normal, sane people aren’t going to care or even notice. So, I guess the point I’m trying to hit is, it doesn’t matter. Do whatever.

Using a z when the “zee” sound is encountered?

‘Uzing a z when the “zee” sound iz encountered?’

Languagez? lolcatz :D

Ideally, yes. Although it would still be lolcats, as the z is unvoiced. In an ideal world, though, we’d all be using Dvorak keyboards and all our clients would be running Firefox 3.1b. It’s not an ideal world. 😉

I’m from UK and would say ‘s’, but I suppose the US is the daddy at the end of the day.