Per Vjosa Isai, reporting from Toronto for the NY Times, “Canadian Linguists Rise Up Against the Letter ‘S’” (archived):
Canadian linguists and editors are not pleased.
Words using British spellings have suddenly appeared in documents published by the Canadian government.
Gone was the “ize” construction standard in Canadian English in favor of the “ise” spelling used in British English. So “emphasize” became “emphasise,” and “trade liberalization” became “trade liberalisation.”
“At first we thought it was an aberration,” said John Chew, the editor of a forthcoming Canadian English dictionary being produced with the help of the Society for Canadian English. But the examples continued to pile up, both in a recent news release and, perhaps more notably, the federal budget […] Hundreds of words were spelled the British way: “de-industrialisation,” “amortisation,” “catalyse,” “digitalisation” and so on.
The choice undermines Canadian English, a group of linguists and editors said in an open letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney this month. They noted that the English adopted by Canada has been used by the federal government for half a century.
I could have gone with the similar story from CTV News, “Canadian English supporters urge Carney to abandon federal shift to British spelling,” but how could I resist the “Linguists Rise Up” hook? Thanks, Eric and Nick!
Apparently spellchecking software exists that will try to enforce a theoretical Canadian norm. E.g. https://www.lingofy.com/lingofy-cp/ Although maybe using that rather that installed-by-default software that just has an “American” option and a “British” option requires some conscious thought?
Should it be ““Canadian linguists rize up…”?