Pry/Prise/Prize

The British spelling would be prising, meaning to lever something off. I have never seen it spelt with a z. We would think this would be an American spelling.

Learned something new today.

I had never heard/seen prising/prizing in the manner in the news bit.

My experience had been limited to the "North American" usage:

pry

verbNorth American
gerund or present participle: prying
use force in order to move or open (something) or to separate (something) from something else.
"using a screwdriver, he pried open the window"

So the British would say "using a screwdriver, he prised open the window" ?

Avoiding the online garbage dictionaries and checking a real paper dictionary, I see Emma is correct: to prize is the American spelling of the British to prise but good luck being understood using “prizing” in the sense of “levering open” and being understood in the US. I suspect a Canadian might not immediately understand that usage, either.

I know I've heard "prise" used in the sense of opening something, as in "Use the screwdriver to prise open the paint can." I'm not sure which relatives I've heard use it, though: the Okies who followed the harvests as itinerant farm workers, or the Pennsylvania immigrant coal miners. Both, I think. It was not uncommon in our house as I was growing up.

Jane: Thanks, I wondered if there were pockets of usage somewhere in the US. I don’t think prise/prize for pry has ever shown up in TV dialogue, though.

This implies Canadians use pry
https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/canada-prise-prize-or-pry.3525564/

Doing a quick search on the article’s author, Rob Picheta, he appears to be a London-based CNN person. That doesn’t answer the “z” versus “s,” however.

Once the attacking animal’s jaws were pried off of the victim’s head, if the guy was concerned about injuring the animal, I bet he cried crocodile tears.

If you're looking to open something, I've never heard anything but pry and pried in Canada. Prized would be used if it's a prized possession.

@ Tom. The following report appeared in The Australian newspaper, a national newspaper part of Newscorp, on 28th January 2021. Is behind firewall, so I have copied a small section.

Man taken to hospital after being bitten on head by crocodile near Cairns. By DARREN CARTWRIGHT

“The gentlemen explained he was swimming … and suddenly felt this impact, clasp on the top of his head, which he recognised to be a crocodile,” Mr Sweeney said.
“He put his hands into his jaws to prise them off his head and it let go and the jaw snapped shut on his left forefinger.”

So was written in correct English. Prima facie, Rob Pitcheta, the contributor of the CNN article has taken the original copy and adjusted the spelling for the North American audience and not attributed the author. I would have been sent down from Oxford had I tried that little trick. Seems all is fair in journalism. A little prying strongly indicates that Pitcheta is a native speaker/writer of the North American dialect of English and is/was in London for CNN and completing/completed an MA in Magazine Journalism at City University of London.

North American spelling and phonetical pronunciation is not an issue in the English-speaking world. We adapt easily.

Circa 2003, Baron Melvyn Bragg (The Lord Bragg) wrote The Adventure of English – The Biography of A Language, together with an 8 episode TV series on the evolution of English into the dominate global language of today. He tells a jolly good story.

If all else fails, one could look it up in a Funk and Wagnalls dictionary. One can get in a right pickle saying that quickly. Should yacht be spelt yot? Or pronounce phonetically to rhyme with hatched/hatchet? Or is it hached/hachet?

Language is fun and full of levity.

“The most lost day in life is the day we don’t laugh.” Sir Charles Spencer (Charlie) Chaplin KBE. The very words I try to live by.

To plagiarise Snagglepuss. Exit stage left.

Regards. Ron

That use of prised is very common around these parts of Canada.

Highlighting Jane’s instinct to use the spelling “prise” for a word she has only heard but not seen written and avoid “prize” which is a word already taken meaning something else. Also, although they are different uses, there is pronunciation overlap with the same 5 letters for “pries” and “prise.”

Andrea: So where you live, pry and prise coexist in the local vocabulary, much the same way that toward and towards often do?

Yes Tom, I never thought of it that way, but yes.

In my experience, "prised" involves more of a struggle than "pried". It's more dramatic. But everyone I know uses and understands it.

I don't recall ever hearing the word "prised / prized" used in this part of Canada. I suspect that it would be used only by a small number of people. The most common word that I've heard over the years is "pry" or "pried". The word is usually used to describe a physical action such as "I had to pry the door open" or a verbal action such as "I had to pry the truth out of him".

I wonder how either version of the word translates into other languages?

I can see a different author perhaps saying the man “wrenched” the croc’s jaws off of his head. But then, in some circles, would that be “spannered?” :)