The word is....

I think we can all live with that phoenix

Definitely! My advice to my students who almost invariably spelt it wrongly was to think of the word 'finite'. Nobody spells it 'finate' - at least I hope not.

Oh, spellings. Right.

Glad this has been received well so far, I was a tad nervous!

How do you feel about practice/practise? Doesn't help that USA spelling and usage is the opposite of ours.
Notso I 'm trying to imagine what you thought she meant!

I was in general practice and I practise the harp?

You get a tick for that,*jeni*.

em In the US, it's always spelt practice, whether it's a verb or a noun. Practise is just regarded as an English usage.

I have to think about practice and practise every time I use them. I can get it right because I know one is a noun and one is a verb, but I still get it wrong sometimes because of 'keyboarding error' . Then I'm embarassed when I see my mistake. Which makes me think there's a case for following the Americans and abandoning the practice of spelling the verb practise.

Bags , use the analogy of advice (noun) and advise (verb); prophecy (noun) and prophesy (verb). I seems to be an accident of history that practice and practise are pronounced the same way.

Ah. Didn't know that. Thank you. But, accidents or not, they are pronounced the same and it causes problems. What I'm wondering is if the American practice of spelling both noun and verb the same way undermines understanding at all. If it doesn't, then what the hell?

People often get advice wrong too.

I would advise you to follow my advice?

I am re-reading Claire Tomalin's biography of Jane Austen and have been reminded that they pronounced join as jine.

jeni...and that would affect the effect on my decision making....

I saw a cute picture of a kitten this morning and thought: it looks as if it's sucking its thumb.

Baggie if that's what it takes.........go with it, but I draw the line at cute kittens!

Advice, vice, lice and ice are all nouns and all have a C.

gracesmum, .

I'm still having problems with affect and effect . Is there a sentence as used above for practice/practise that anyone can suggest which will help, please?

If someone has a flat affect, what would be the most effective treatment?

Fed-up of seeing 'Off-License' above shops. Should also follow the rule of c for nouns (so off-licence) and s for verbs (so licensed to sell alcohol).

The student worked at the doctor's practice so that he could practise medicine?

Tech dears- the word is "resuscitate" not resucitate (see intro headlines) - I suspect that even in extremis I would still care!

Supersede appears to give problems - somehow 'supercede' looks better.
I used to teach my pupils that they could remember the difference in the spellings of 'separate' and 'desperate' because the former had 'part' in it.
Cars with an 'a' are stationary, and pens with an 'e' are stationery.
'Principal' is your first friend, and 'principle' is the other one!
'Definitely' is another word that is often spelt wrongly - I don't know why.
Do schools still teach these little nmemonics?