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I see that ionization is the American version of this word, and ionisation is the British version. Is "ionization" acceptable in text written in the British variant of the English language?

Do you know any dictionary or any source of knowledge that is saying when a particular word is acceptable in a particular variant of the English language or not?

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    It is an over-simplification to say that -ize words are 'American versions' and '-ise' versions are 'British versions': ise endings are the majority usage, and -ize is a minority usage, in British English. In American English it is the reverse. Technically both are acceptable in either, although in my experience, US people often consider '-ise' versions an error.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Oct 26, 2021 at 21:11

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There's no single authority on what is and isn't acceptable in English. Nothing like the Academie Francaise for French the Nederlandse Taalunie for Dutch.

What's acceptable depends on who needs to accept it. If you're writing for a class your teacher will decide what is acceptable. If you're writing for publication, the publisher's style guide will decide.

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    This always bugs me - pedantic maybe, but especially with the Académie française - a French proper noun. That august body would insist on the A, the é, the ç, and the small f, but English-language publications are wildly inconsistent. Sometimes you get the French accented é and the cedilla ç, but English capitalisation of the adjective of nationality.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Oct 27, 2021 at 8:50
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Because ionization is a word only used in scientific speech, there is no answer for this that fits common situations. As user The Photon suggests, for scientific terms you will just have to customize it for your region, and sometimes even your particular professor.

Physics has a number of words that fall under this rule (for example, "fusion" can refer to either nuclear combining of atoms or the melting of a solid, depending on the age of your textbook), which is difficult given the need for precision in the science.

I do not know of a dictionary that covers spelling differences between the languages, but I suspect that a search of this particular Stack Exchange would cover the majority of them that exist.

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