Specialised vs. specialized

[jon.bosak@sun.com]

Folks,

I've just made a truly sad discovery: a usage I thought was
preferred British is not.  We decided a while ago to use Oxford
English, and that means the Oxford English Dictionary.  I thought
up till now that Oxford English meant "specialised" rather than
"specialized."  But on checking I have just discovered that not
only does the OED prefer "ize" to "ise" *in general*, but it does
not even have an entry for "specialised."  And if it ain't in the
OED, it ain't English no matter where you live.  (The form with
the s does appear in some of the historical citations, but unlike
"despatch," it doesn't rate a listing as a recognized alternative.
Same with "customise," which doesn't even appear in citations.)

Unless someone can find me a British authority of equal weight to
the contrary (and no, I don't count something like Chambers as
equal to the OED), I'm going to have to change this.

Fortunately this will be a fairly straightforward task in the
master document text, the file names, and the schemas, and I'm up
to doing it for the build due out Friday night.  But it will
also require changes in the following two illustrations, for which
I do not have the original art:

   Figure 2
   Figure B-5

Jon