Where has the s gone?

[SiriusStar]

I keep seeing realise and recognise spelt with a z. Who decided to change it? The books I have found them in are published here.
My DH is a teacher and his HT corrected a letter, changing the s to a z.
Have I missed something?

i would have used a z in both of those words. Interesting though - so i shall follow this thread and find out whether I am correct.

IMHO, it is the Americanisation (or Americanization) of written English. US English uses a z in these (and similar) words where UK English uses an s.

It makes me really peeved when I see this (I am a pedant, after all).

I agree with Poledra. I always use an s.

Never mind the s, I was really shocked to find out that son's gcse textbooks all used sulfur instead of sulphur. That is a step too far although I confess I quite like some zs around.

Ps I am shocked that I am posting here using a telephone given my poor texting ability and lack of spell check!

sulfur! Pure and utter evil.

As I understand it, 'z' is actually the original English spelling (read any old literature and you'll find the 'z' spelling) and, at some random point in the last 100 years, it became more normal to use an 's', whereas in America they kept the 'z'.

Both are acceptable spellings so your DH's HT was wrong to correct him.

And...the book talked about calcium sulfate. How on earth can this be right!

I have mixed feelings about this, because classic novels all have z-spellings in them, because that was how it was originally. Now that S is the accepted English thing to do, I feel I ought to use the s spellings, and the Z spellings grate, yet I feel I should be less easily grated about it, given the circumstances...

I write for a newspaper and our style is always s not z.

Thanks for your replies.

I agree with you about using 's' - I certainly prefer it, but I worked in Oxford for some years and the OED's preferred ending of words like realise and recognise is with a 'z'. So although I feel it's an Americanism (or should that be Americanizm? ) it is now correct English usage.