Friday's English Language Lesson #7***

[ajva]

I was thinking earlier today about jhg's little intervention last week, when he defiantly insisted I had made a typo, on the somewhat imperialistic grounds that American spellings of words are de facto incorrect.


It rather put me in mind of the time his mother - a teacher - asked us both if we knew the difference between the words "license" and "licence".

"Yes of course," shoots back jhg: "the '-se' ending is the American version."

This seems to be something of an obsession for Mr. Griffin, but unfortunately in this case he was not quite correct.

The truth of the matter is that the difference is exactly the same as with the words "practise" and "practice" viz. the former is a verb, and the latter a noun. So one may license someone to do something, and give them a licence for it.

There may be some remaining confusion over the word licensee, since this is a noun. However, astute readers will notice that the noun derives from the verb i.e. a licensee is someone who is licensed. Hence the spelling.

Hmmm. This is reminding me that I must ask lolliepopp if our TV licence is up to date.

Comments

[booklectica]

Am I correct in thinking, though, that in America, they use 'license' for both verb and noun?

[ajva.livejournal.com]

I believe so, hence jhg being "not quite correct" rather than "utterly, laughably wrong". A sin of omission rather than a falsehood.

[conflux.livejournal.com]

...and in my American company we use license to mean both when talking about software licenses, so maybe James is partly right?

[ajva.livejournal.com]

See my reply to katyha above. The point was that, when appraised of the situation in British English, he said it was totally new to him. He had thought that the British/American distinction had been the only one.

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

That settles it: I'm going to go with the American usage in future, because this is one instance where the English language is just Too Damn Complicated.

[adjectivegail]

I like this lesson very much indeed; 'practice' and 'practise' were bugbears of mine at boarding school, where people would put up notices for "a choir practise". Aaaaaaaargh.

[juliet]

Except that it's 'to licence' rather than 'to license', I believe (just for the infinitive, I mean). Or so I was told by a former editor for a publishing house, anyway. I presume the same applies to 'to practice', as well.

*Bugger*. I thought that being at IC would enable me to get at the OED again, but apparently not, or I need a password, or something. [growls]

[ajva.livejournal.com]

Your editor was, I fear, completely wrong. Shocker, eh? :o)

[juliet]

You mean I have to unlearn that one? Curses. (on the other hand, at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that I was right in the first place & she was wrong to correct me :-) ).

I have further discovered that this appalling excuse for a university does not have *any* sort of subscription to the OED at all. Bloody scientists.

[ajva.livejournal.com]

Hurrah for being right in the first place! And welcome back! :o)

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

It has been mandated that we are to use correct English usage for all the documents we write about our license management system. I don't have a hope of getting this one right.

[jhg.livejournal.com]

In my last comment, I was very careful to avoid asserting that the British version was the correct one, or superior. Not out of so-called political correctness, but simply because that isn't true! I was merely concerned to make the distinction, and back up my assertion that 'installment' is not the usual way, at least here, of spelling the word.

As for 'practice' and 'practise', 'licence' and 'license', I have certainly since learned, and retained, the fact that they are, respectively, the nouns and the verbs.


J

[blakeshell.livejournal.com]

Well I looked up the words in my American dictionary and “licence” and “license” are both valid in The States. They both can also be used as both a noun and a verb.