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Okay. What's the difference?
e.g.:
lenience, leniency
dependence, dependency
contingence, contingency
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One set ends in e and the other ends in y? [scratchin my haid here-e]
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Ahem. Very funny (no *rimshot* for you!!). I've always said 'leniency', etc., but more and more often I'm hearing the -ce ending. Especially in the media...
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Umm, how about -ence words show an abstract quality, and the -ency words show an instance of that quality in action.
Thus, The judge's lenience was criticised by the popular press. We're talking about the judge's general attitude.
The defendant was grateful for the judge's leniency in sentencing him. We're talking about a particular instance.
Similarly, dependence is an abstraction, while a dependency is a territory which is dependent on another. For example the Crown Dependencies (the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man).
Bingley
Bingley
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hmm, xrefer disagrees with me. See their disucssions under particular words: http://www.xrefer.com/xrefs.jsp?xrefid=591898Bingley
Bingley
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Just for the record, I haven't heard instances of "lenience" being used. Have to start to keep my ears open for that one.
Bingley (hi!), I thought your rationale made a lot of sense. Have to go read your link now to see whether it makes as much sense as you did.
WW
PS: I just read your link and, yep, that's the opposite point of view. Well, thank goodness, AnnaS brought this to our attention! We do so enjoy fine-tuning our usage, don't we?
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Go back to the ce, cy, ... link and you'll find, among other things, (iii) Those which exist in both forms, usually with clearly distinguishable meanings: dependence, the state of being dependent; dependency, (especially) a country or province controlled by another; emergence, a coming to light; emergency, a sudden state of danger; excellence, the state of excelling; Excellency (in His (etc.) Excellency, used as a term of address, principally to ambassadors, which looks to me like it agrees with you, Bing.
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Great! We're gonna have a debate!  Faldage and Bingley v. Bingley
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Yay! I'll get the popcorn going...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Biiiiing-leeeeee---[KISS]  I think Bingley's going to win.  B, you wrote:
how about -ence words show an abstract quality, and the -ency words show an instance of that quality in action. Thus, The judge's lenience was criticised by the popular press. We're talking about the judge's general attitude.
The defendant was grateful for the judge's leniency in sentencing him. We're talking about a particular instance. X-refer says:
The Oxford English Dictionary defines lenience as 'lenient action or behaviour; indulgence', and leniency as 'the quality of being lenient', For leniency, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate gives
1 : the quality or state of being lenient
2 : a lenient disposition or practice For lenience, it just refers you to leniency! If I may take mild exception to your The judge's lenience was criticised by the popular press. We're talking about the judge's general attitude. , I think the way it is worded here might be more applicable to a specific instance. If I wanted to talk about general attitude, I might write something like: The judge, being known for his leniency, was criticized by the press. Oh, no! Look what I found in X-refer's page for -ce, -cy: it is unwise to theorize about the distribution of the rival forms without reference to the relevant Oxford English Dictionary entries. Ha! I must say that I don't think the comparison of emergence to emergency should have been included, because the two have completely different meanings. Unless...DID emergency ever mean emergence? Would someone ever have said that they witnessed the emergency of the butterfly from its cocoon?
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