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Carpal Tunnel
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"I need to renew my driver's licence next month."not in my state! licence is listed as a (chiefly British) variant in US dictionaries -- and that is a U.S. list. http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/
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old hand
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old hand
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Then I beg to humbly point out that your state is WRONG!
But this is how language evolves.
Advice/advise is another pairing like licence/license and practice/practise. You can take someone's advice when he advises you, or you can ignore it.
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License is the verb; licence is the noun.
My trusty, never dusty, Webster's says: license n. 1. A legal permit to do something. 2. A written or printed certificate of a legal permit. 3. Unrestrained liberty of action; disregard of propriety. 4. Allowable deviation from an established rule, form, or standard: poetic license. v.t. To grant a license to or for; authorize.
It does not list licence what-so-ever, and I have never seen this spelling before today!
Even our own wonderful spell check turned licence into license.
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Carpal Tunnel
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In the late nineteenth century the full cliché developed: He’s the very spit and image of his father, followed by the folk etymology that replaced spit and with spitting (or spittin’ or spitten) image.
[wanting to learn -e] tsuwm, are you saying that the phrase originated in error, or that it is deemed erroneous in usage today?
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OP
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Miscelleny So, love, are you making it the 101st?
And the prize goes to ... Jackie, in a record time of only 6 hrs 5 mins and 11 seconds. [loud cheering-e] 
Hev
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Carpal Tunnel
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ycliu by plugging 'folk etymology' into OneLook to see the slightly different takes on the phrase. here is the OED reading: usually, the popular perversion of the form of words in order to render it apparently significant.http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/
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old hand
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old hand
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My trusty, never dusty, Webster's
O God. Why do so many people use Webster's? Get thee to an Oxford!
I'd love to hear from the Antipodeans on this one. Is it licence/license down under, or always license?
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Carpal Tunnel
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>O God. Why do so many people use Webster's? 'cuz Webster set us down the road of codifying American English, which is what we speak here, doncha know. http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/
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H.L. Mencken (1880–1956). The American Language. 1921. VIII. American Spelling 1. The Two Orthographies http://www.bartleby.com/185/31.html
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