Legal Writing

Some Advice about ?Advise?

By Maeve Maddox

Two comments on writing sites jumped out at me recently:

Whereas other kinds of writing you could slide a bit, although that is not adviced or recommended.

and

Very smart advise. Also always check with the publisher for submission guidelines as they all can be a little diferent but they all want perfection to their rules.

I know that it?s easy to write comments in a hurry and then see, too late, that you?ve misspelled something or written an ungrammatical sentence and can?t go back to correct it. I have a lot of experience in doing just that.

However, it?s not just in rapidly-written comments that advice and advise are mixed up.

ESL speakers and writers must find the words easy to confuse. This from the Norway Post:

Swine Flu: Mass vaccination adviced
As expected the Norwegian Health authorities on Friday announced that they advice all Norwegians to be vaccinated against the swine flu

Many bloggers and forum commentators, possibly native English speakers, suffer from the same confusion:

nature – Viewer discretion adviced…egh (headline over unpleasant photo)

Why heart patients are adviced for morning work (headline on medical advice site)

Post Tooth Extraction Care as adviced to my patients (headline on the blog of a dental surgeon)

Why are people adviced to eat seasonal fruits and vegetables? (Answers.com wiki question)

We Adviced a New Mum How to Cope With a New Baby and the New Role of Motherhood (Articlesbase headline)

Advice and advise are pronounced differently. The c in advice has the sound /s/. The s in advise has the sound /z/.

Both words have numerous meanings, but the usual ones are:

Advice: a noun meaning ?opinion given or offered as to action.?

Advise: a verb meaning ?to counsel, caution, or warn.?

The past tense form of the verb advise is advised.

Tip for keeping them straight: The word advice never changes its form. You can talk about ?different pieces of advice? but never ?advices.? If you catch yourself trying to add any kind of ending to advice, you?re about to commit an error.

Examples of use:
Take my advice and stay home when it snows.
I am advising you for your own good.
He advised her to stay home.
She failed to heed his advice.

Full post as published by Daily Writing Tips on February 23, 2010 (boomark / email).