The OED (Oxford English Dictionary) and many other English dictionaries actually allow both spellings - the use of "ise" and "ize" is primarily a historical one. 200 years ago the "ize" predominated (i.e. at the time when lots of people emigrated to the US), however the "ise" has become the common usage in this part of the world over the last two centuries. There is no right or wrong - both are correct.

Just to add my 2p (seeing as we are talking English) - I personally believe that learning to spell correctly is one of the most important aspects of language. The professor's students need to be penalised for their sloppiness - spelling matters!

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Annoyingly, I do know about "tyre".......that's something that I end up mentally ignoring every time I type that word. "Bonnet" I never use, "boot and bootlid" usually only come up very rarely in conversation. And yes, it is aluminium trim. And I would seriously enjoy a E46 330ci cabriolet right about now.

To throw a wrench into this whole topic, I use the German keyboard layout (qwertz versus qwerty).

The only reason I know what a bonnet or boot is, other than a sort of hat that women wear and a type of heavy shoe worn on the feet, is from watching British comedy and movies. "Tyre" just LOOKS weird... But hey, I have only lived in the US. I did know about "litre" and "metre" though They really don't bother me at all.

But what do the British call that type of hat women wear? A hood?

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Boot is quite easy to understand, in the early part of the 20th C. most cars had a large box (or Trunk) on the back for storing luggage etc - commonly that was used to store "boots" - as cars were predominantly owned by the rich the boots were stored there for when they went shooting, fishing and horse-riding.

Bonnet - I have no idea how that came into usage for cars, but it could be to do with how early cars had a leather strap over the engine cover mimicking a bonnet which had a strap under the chin - the use as headgear is pretty antiquated now......

A hood is either a bag put over the head (i.e. criminals) or a rain cover integrated into a jacket such as an anorak or gore-tex, or a sweat top - commonly called a "hoodie" - incidentally people who wear hoodies are called "hoodies" and is generally meant to mean teenage trouble-makers.

As for tyre vs tire.......to me tire as a noun just LOOKS weird, however from http://www.chambersharrap.co.uk/, ETYMOLOGY: 18c: a variant of 15c tire a headdress, from attire. So It looks as though it is similar to the "ize" vs "ise" - i.e. two and a bit centuries ago it would've been tire in the uk, and over time the modern usage has become tyre.

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Velly intellestink StumpyPete. A hood is also the covering for the engine compartment of a car... and the trunk thing, why didn't they just keep calling it "the trunk" since that's what they used to store the boots?

I don't need an answer to those, it just goes to show why English is a difficult language for non-English speaking people to learn, so many words have more than one meaning depending on the context. I work with several Cambodians that have trouble understanding some words because of that. If I were to tell one of them to put that box in the boot they'd either look at me like I was crazy or start looking for a shoe-type boot to put it in!

P.S.: I'm not making fun of my co-workers but it can be amusing for us native Americans. I admire and respect them for the effort they have made to better their lives and become a part of this great nation. Two of them have recently become US citizens!

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Far more complex than what? English is not my native language and German was the first foreign language I learned. From my perspective, German grammar is far more rigid and straightforward than English is. Yes, it has its own gimmicks but it was easier for me to learn than English. German phonetics is also much simpler than English but this is another topic.