Practise / practice

[vaysh]

Today's Entry from Common Errors in English Usage.

practice/practiseIn the United Kingdom, “practice” is the noun, “practise” the verb; but in the US the spelling “practice” is commonly used for both, though the distinction is sometimes observed. “Practise” as a noun is, however, always wrong in both places: a doctor always has a “practice,” never

Comments

[minervas_eule]

Reading these posts on your journal is always so helpful.... I usually hesitate for a second when I use 'to practise' and have my finger over the "s" ... now I know why :-) - that's what living in the US does to ones English learned in school..

[celestlyn]

I really like that blog! Sometimes it's 'no-brainer' stuff, but other times it requires a second look, and occasionally I see something that makes me go, "Really?"

[marta_bee]

I had absolutely no clue about this - I assumed practise was just British spelling. You learn something new all the time.

[tari_sue]

Tis also true with license and licence - M licensed James Bond to kill so he now has a licence to kill. Also, technically, defense/defence and offense/offence, but it is quite hard to use those in the verb form. And advise/advice, which everyone know because they have the advantage of being pronounced differently. Advise/advice are a good way of working out which you should use by replacing the word with either - what would you advise/what would you practise? This is good advice/this is good practice.

[khalulu]

That's interesting about license/licence and advise/advice, but I think (and as far as I've been able to research), offense/offence and defense/defence is just another US vs other varieties difference.

[tari_sue]

Sorry, I purely speaking from a uk point of view - defence can in theory be used as a verb, in which case it would be spelt as defence, but it is never used as a verb. However, derivatives are, so we have defensive rather than defencive, where as in the US they simplified it all down to one form with just the s.

[vaysh]

Interesting about the derivative referring to a non-existent verb form. :)