'z' or 's' - I'm confused or confuzed!

Eureka -- I have sorted it, I had UK English set as my language in Chrome, but had not tagged it to be used for the spell check.

This annoys me, my internet spell check is US English, hence color instead of colour etc. I have the system set up as British English, but makes no difference. Very annoying.

Not entirely related but a good way to remember whether stationary or stationery is "e" for envelope.
New to this site. Interesting and amusing!

Thank you! I wish I had thought of that.

Janerowena: I was in my thirties before I even realized that those words had two different spellings! Then I had trouble remembering whether it was the noun that took 'c' and the verb that took 's', or the other way round. I've got over that now, by remembering that a noun is something that you can usually 'c' (see). It works for me!

No it's not - not for me! It's my one and only spelling problem.

For a sister, it's 'Said'. She always writes 'Siad'.

Verb with an 's', noun with a 'c'- easy to remember ;)

Cs and Zs don't confuse me, it's Cs and Ss. Defence, Defense, Practice, Practise.

So from now on, I may start a new trend and use Practize and Defenze. After all, all those sill LOL cats on facebook say things like 'Can I haz cheezeburger?'.

The confuse was just to attract attention. I'll just go on using 's's unless it looks 'wrong' as it sometimes does. Point taken about referencing. My computer set to British English but still underlines when I use an 's'. Oh, well, no easy answer to this!
Thanks all

Civilisation, civilized - I must have a split personality!

Way back in the mists of time, I was taught that z or s depended on whether the word implied instigation of change in the object of the verb...but I cannot remember which is which and don't think it matters.

There is also something to do with the Great Vowel Shift (also from the mists of my education) which had a big influence on English spelling.

So, honestly, does it matter? None of it is to do with Americanization / Americanisation, that's for sure.

I think –ize, as in civilize, has been the preferred British spelling for some decades and –ise is the alternative. I seem to remember a complete revision of the style book at the publishers for whom I worked some time in the 1970s because of this. There are, as always, exceptions – advise not advize for example.

In fact I don't think Gransnet has its own spell check, does it?

Me neether!

I don't seem to have a spell check on GN (as you may have notised)

rosequartz/s.

I always change z to s if predictive text throws up the z.
I email quite a bit to the USA so find the kerb/curb - theatre/theater etc. etc. is endless. My son has lived there for 11 years and pretty much spells the USA way.... pretty confusing for him as he is dyslexic.

It's the spellcheck on Gransnet that underlines the s. I do not use spellcheck on anything else, but cannot seem to get rid of it on this site.
However, Gransnet is always underlined as well.

Set your pc or mob to 'british' English and the 'z's disappear except where they're meant to be eg zoo.

If predictive text on my kindle uses z where it's possible to use s I always change to s. I think z looks American.

I am sure z was used more when I was a child but now s is more normal

Yours sincerely
Rosequarts

Yes. They seem to have hung onto the 'z' longer than we have.

I also think z or zee, as Americans pronounce it, instead of an s, is very much American English. If I remember rightly from reading Bill Bryson, they sometimes use old English that we have abandoned here. We have quite a few disparities as far as spelling is concerned.

Oxford Dictionary online It comes from the Latin, confusus, and old French confus.

Is this another of those 'Oxford spell it with a ' ' and Cambridge spell it with a ' '' deals?