Muphry’s Law states that in criticising something in writing mistakes will be made in the criticism itself. For example if you moan to a publisher about spelling mistakes in a book then your email will contain a spelling mistake. One of the best examples recently was in the Sun newspaper when it lambasted Gordon Brown who had mis-spelled a soldier’s name in a letter of condolence to his mother following his death in service. Needless to say the Sun mis-spelled the mother’s name and was forced to publish an apology soon after.
I was reminded of this law reading an article about Conrad Black who is currently spending time as the US President’s guest in Florida following his inability to distinguish Hollinger’s money from his own.
Black wrote:
I am enjoying tutoring secondary school-leaving candidates in English, practicing the piano, writing and shaping myself up…
Whether the incorrect spelling of practicing was Black’s or the editors is not known but the trouble deciding which version of some word pairs such as practice/practise and licence/license is common. In the USA they seem to have just adopted the s version for both noun and verb usage but in the UK practice is a noun and practise a verb. So you can say:
to do well at sport you need to practise
but:
to do well at sport you need practice.
If you have difficulty remembering which is which then use advice/advise as your model. Because these are pronounced differently they are easy to differentiate, one can give advice (noun) or one can advise (verb).
Now I will grammar and spell-check this article three times before posting it.
