ABSTRACT
English spelling is easy to make fun of – and not easy to get right. It certainly defies logic. We spell ‘harass’ with one ‘r’ and ‘embarrass’ with two; the noun ‘dependant’ has an ‘a’ in the last syllable while the adjective ‘dependent’ has an ‘e’. In British English we spell ‘licence’ and ‘practice’ with a ‘c’ when they’re nouns and with an ‘s’ when they’re verbs (‘she has a licence to practise’; ‘they licensed the practice’) – though we pronounce them in exactly the same way. In American English, on the other hand, ‘license’ with an ‘s’ does for both noun and verb – and so does ‘practice’ with a ‘c’. Confused?
