Apologies, Lottie. (Actually, I did wonder - I suspect 'Lottie' is a commoner name in the USA than here.) Obviously nobody can object to Americans following American usage.
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Robin - you do realise that 'realize' is an Americanisation as well?
Now that's an interesting point, Royal Horticultural Society. On the '-ize'/'-ise' issue more generally, Fowler's Modern English Usage says that 'most English printers follow the French practice of changing -ize [as in the original Greek root of the suffix] to -ise; but the OED of the Oxford University Press, the Encyclopaedia Britannica of [no longer, alas] the Cambridge University Press, The Times, & American usage, in all of which -ize is the accepted form, carry authority enough to outweigh superior numbers. ' The (British) Modern Humanities Reseach Association style guide prefers '-ize', and says other academic publishers do too.