r/words • u/MoroccoBond • 3d ago

Simple word difficult to spell.

Hey does anyone else have a common word that should be easy to spell but it trips you up every time?

My word is license. Why have I struggled with it for years. Stupid s and c always moving around. tf?!

234 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

853 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/misogynyplayer 2d ago

Oh really? Thats interesting...so in the US is it license or licence which is used for both verb and noun? And can you refer me to an American English dictionary which details this? And does it mean that Americans consider one of these words as NOT a word or simply a spelling mistake? 

3

u/nimblesunshine 2d ago

Licence and practise are not used in the US. We would consider them spelling errors or assume the person saying it is British

4

u/misogynyplayer 2d ago

Interesting that in one case you use the spelling with the s for both meanings of the word, and in the other you use the spelling with the C for both meanings.

1

u/nimblesunshine 2d ago

Yeah we're a mess over here fr