What to do during lockdown? Last week, we suggested recipes you might enjoy. This week, I’m suggesting some puzzles — none too difficult, I promise — to test your grey cells.
In the grid below are well-known book titles, authors, characters and houses.
See how many you can find, using the clues below the grid. Continue reading
Of course, as I type this, the spell-checker — in American English — is giving me a loud red underline to tell me that practise is wrong.
Well, no. Not in British English it’s not. And, funnily enough, on this side of the pond we tend to think that English is OUR language and that Brits make the rules and get the shiny star.
If pushed, though, Brits would usually admit that some British English is plain daft.
I’d say that the distinction between practise and practice is one of those daftisms. I’d add that license and licence are daftisms, too. (“Daftism” is one of my own words, by the way, a Pedantique-Ryterism! It can’t be any dafter than practise/practice.)
American English is much more sensible on this kind of distinction and just uses practice/licence all the time. That being so, American visitors are at liberty to skip to the puzzle at the end — unless, of course, they’d like to have a laugh at the daftness of Brits. If so, feel free to read on.