The Times (of London) should switch back to -ize again!

Are there any old Brits out there who remember when the -ize spelling was popular in Britain?. Liz and I are too young to remember that far back. At school in the 80s my teachers used to "correct" -ize spellings in thick, red pen because "-ize is the American spelling".

<<Since most international organizations use "Oxford spelling", I regard it as a more international British spelling standard.>>

I've read that global organizations like the UN tend to use the Oxford spellings (basically British, with "-ize"), whereas European organizations tend to use the "-ise" spelling.

Regarding what Andy said, one time I saw an episode of "Inspector Morse" (from around 1990) in which Morse complains about how everyone is using the "-ise" spelling, which he considers "illiterate". ;-)

I think The Times might lose readers if they switched back to -ize..
But it might be a good idea because it would give the newspaper a more serious and authoritative air again...

I'm Canadian, and I would say we fall somewhere in the middle (as usual). Both -ise and -ize occur, but I think -ize is more common. Words ending in -yze, however are uncommon here (except maybe 'analyze'). I just think it works better with -yse because you have alternations like 'analyse, analysis' and you don't have to change the spelling. Also, whenever -ise/-ize has an additional suffix, I tend to use 's', eg. 'vocalize, vocalisation' though I'm not sure if this is common practice here.
Speaking of which, how about the alternation between 'practice' and 'practise'? In Canada, these are supposed to be the noun and the verb respectively, but I don't think that rule is widely followed. How does it work elsewhere?

<<Speaking of which, how about the alternation between 'practice' and 'practise'? In Canada, these are supposed to be the noun and the verb respectively, but I don't think that rule is widely followed. How does it work elsewhere?>>

In the US we use "practice" for both the noun and the verb. I think in Britain they use "-ice" for the noun and "-ise" for the verb.

"~ize" but "~isation", that's interesting. Yeah, "practice" and "practise", that's the rule elsewhere i.e. outside of North America, I guess it's followed well enough ... as well as any other spelling rule.

The letter Z is about the only letter of the English alphabet that looks as if it doesn't belong in British English. It has that "foreign" look about it - almost Germanic, and many British think it has no place here. There are not that many place names in the UK which contain a Z - off hand I can only think of Leighton Buzzard (Bedfordshire) and Ashby-de-la-Zouch (Leicestershire) - which suggests it's of "foreign" origin anyway, apart from the Ashby bit.

The letter K is also much less common in British English than it is in other Germanic Languages, and this is probably followed by J.

I could never foresee the BE "....ise" endings giving way to "...ize" in 21 century Britain.