Helen Clutton suggests that “theorize” is an American spelling (Letters, 18 August). It’s not as simple as that. The -ize spellings used to be standard in British English. I have seen a baptismal certificate for my great aunt, born in the 1880s in the Abingdon area, which said she was “baptized”.
Endings with -ize were allowed when I was at school in the 1960s. I used to enjoy writing the loopy zeds in cursive script. It was only when I started work in the 1970s that people began telling me this was an American spelling and -ise endings became standard.
