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by sawaruna 2137 days ago
I noticed this lately, I think when getting a new OS installed and making the dictionary UK English instead of Canadian English, thinking there would be little difference. The main issues have been with words that may end in an 'ism', e.g. criticize, nationalize, like those mentioned in the post. I've always spelt (purposely ignoring Canadian version, 'spelled' which I grew up with) these words with the 'ize' ending but the OS' UK English dictionary is now always flagging these as wrong, preferring the 'ise'.
1 comments
mercer 2137 days ago
See, to me 'spelt' just feels wrong, but 'ise' does too. I've found that I generally lean toward US English, but then they're the weird interactions with my own language (Dutch) that make me uncomfortable with words like 'aluminum'.
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mathieuh 2137 days ago
I am not a linguist, but I do speak BrE natively and to me "-t" and "-ed" are used in different context. The "-t" ending is used for adjectives ("dinner is burnt", "that child is spoilt", "it's spelt like this"), and "-ed" is used for conjugations of the verb ("I burned dinner", "you have spoiled your child", "I spelled it like this").

I honestly don't care either way, it's a bit jarring to me to see American spellings of things, and I've done work for gov.uk before where the style guide says to use British spellings, but I think it's just being obtuse if you have some evangelical adherence to either way.

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stordoff 2136 days ago
Also a British English native speaker, and I'd generally use -t for both cases, though sometimes I'll use -ed. I seem to slightly bias away from "spelt" though, possibly due to it having another meaning. I suspect it's regional, and -ed feels slightly more passive to me (similar to 'it burned' vs 'I burnt it').
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ferzul 2136 days ago
I have heard it described that -ed is used more often when the speaker is conceptualising the time it took, but -t is used as a default.

That would mean “it burned” brings to mind images more like “it was burning” and “I burnt it” brings to mind images of having something that is burnt.

Neither of your examples are passive btw.

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