Realise vs Realize

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Realise vs Realize
In English language, there are several words which can be spelled in two different ways without the meaning of the word being affected in any way. Replacing ‘s’ with ‘z’ is one of the ways which alters the spelling of a word, like analyse-analyze, criticize-criticize, organize-organize and of course realize-realize. A common interpretation given to explain this difference is that a word that is spelled with ‘s’ is the British version of the word while the version containing ‘z’ is the American way of spelling it.

This logic might hold good in case of many words that feature this discrepancy but in case of realize-realize, it may not be entirely true. In fact, a peek down the lanes of history proves that British English started out with the word ‘realize’ during the 19th century and reverted to ‘realise’ only later. This is the reason as to why most of the British publications between 1800 and 2100 feature ‘realize’ more number of times than ‘realise’. It was only during the latter half of the 21st century that British publications began to display a marked proclivity towards the word ‘realise’, thus giving out the general impression that it was to be treated as a part of British English.

Meanwhile, the use of ‘realize’ was widespread in all the British colonies like USA, New Zealand and so on, a practice that continued even after the declaration of independence. Since these countries never took to adopting ‘realise’ when Britain did, ‘realize’ continued to be used not just in common parlance but in prestigious publications and formal forms of writing too. Therefore, over a period of time, the two variants began to be distinguished on the basis of their respective countries of usage.

‘Realise’ or ‘realize’ share the same meaning which is to fully comprehend, understand or to be aware of something which might be a feeling or a sense. So you will be correct if you use either of the two spellings. However, you will be held wrong if you use both in the same publication, thus implying that you must choose to use one version and stick to it throughout your writing career.

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