cross-fertilisation
noun
Cross-fertilisation — the British spelling of culture's fruitful collisions
Definition
Interchange between different cultures or different ways of thinking that is mutually productive and beneficial; "the cross-fertilization of science and the creative arts"
In depth
Cross-fertilisation is the British spelling variant of cross-fertilization, naming the same productive interchange between different cultures or ways of thinking that enriches each through contact with the other. The meaning is identical to its American counterpart; only the spelling convention changes.
Origin
The spelling divergence follows the broader, systematic pattern across English in which words ending in '-ize' in American usage often appear as '-ise' in British usage, a difference traceable to nineteenth-century efforts on both sides of the Atlantic to standardize spelling according to differing preferences for Greek versus French-influenced orthography.
Usage examples
"The British Council funded programs specifically designed to encourage cross-fertilisation between artists from former colonies and their counterparts in London."
"Academic conferences across Europe still favour the older spelling, cross-fertilisation, in their published proceedings."
"She wrote of the remarkable cross-fertilisation between Indian classical music and the modernist composers who encountered it in the early twentieth century."
How to use it
Use cross-fertilisation when writing for a British, Irish, Australian, or other Commonwealth audience, or wherever surrounding text follows British orthographic convention; otherwise the word functions identically to its American spelling in every respect.
Related concepts
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