Spelling: Which to use -ce or -se?
A very common spelling mistake is to confuse licence with license, or device with devise.
Here is a list of words which follows this pattern.
- advice and advise
- practice and practise
- licence and license
- device and devise
- prophecy and prophesy
Look at the following sentences in which the words are spelled correctly. See if you can deduce the spelling rule. Here's a clue, it has to do with whether the word is used as a noun or a verb!
- My advice is to forget you ever saw her!
- Let me advise you that you are skating on thin ice!
- My legal practice is doing very well, thank you.
- Could I practise with your racket, please?
- Do you have a licence?
- I must remember to license my gun.
- A thermo-nuclear device was exploded last week.
- The policve will have to devise new ways of dealing with fraud.
- His prophecy has yet to come true.
- I prophesy that we will win the match.
The spelling rule is:
-ce is used with _____________, while
-se is used with _____________.
