Sketchplanations

Explaining one thing a week in a sketch

Fellow devising a device as a way to illustrate how Devise, Advise, License, and practise (with an s) are all verbs in British English and device, advice, licence and practice (with a c) are all nouns

Advise vs advice and other s and c's

Is it advise or advice? Devise or device? And if you're using British English, license or licence, practise or practice?

Handily, the general practice is to use an 's' for the verb, and a 'c' for the noun. So advise is something you do, and advice is something you give.

In American English, there is only license and practice for both verbs and nouns. However, in British English, you would you use license if you were licensing someone and what they received would be a licence — with a 'c'. And in British English, you would practise when you went to practice.

Some places suggest thinking of the '-ice' at the end as ice which is a noun. Whatever works for you.

License/licence and practise/practice are homophones

Also see, stationary and stationery, compliment and complement, affect and effect

Keep exploring

Chihuahua syndrome illustration: an analyst wonders at the number of dog breeds when most of them are misspellings of chihuahua
Hara Hachi Bu meaning summary showing a person, perhaps in Okinawa Japan, declining food at 80% full
Greeble or greeblie illustration: showing a panel of buttons on a wall and a ship in a spaceport rather like the Millenium Falcom full of small elements that give detail and scale
Affect vs effect: one person affects another by pushing them into the water. The effect is a big splash.
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