The great divide between British English and American English can often be a single letter.
The American version of British words that end in “our” often use “or” instead. Consider “honour” and “honor”, “neighbour” and “neighbor” and “behaviour” and “behavior”.
Words that end in “re” in UK English often end in “er” in US English. Consider “metre” and “meter”, “centre” and “center”, and “fibre” and “fiber”. However, where the letter preceding the “re” is a hard “c” (pronounced like “k”), American English also uses “re”. This is the case with words like “acre” and “mediocre”.
Similarly, and very important in a lawyer’s everyday practise (or practice), words that end in “se” in the UK may end in “ce” in the US and vice versa. In addition to practise (UK)/practice (US), this is true of licence (UK) /license (US), and defence (UK)/defense (US). However, note that the verb form of licence/license is license in both countries. Finally, don’t be misled into thinking that advice and advise are similarly interchangeable. Advice is the noun form and advise is the verb form in both variations.
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“Finally, don’t be mislead…”
You mean: “…don’t be misLED…”
I see “lead” used instead of “led” as the past tense of “to lead” all the time, probably because “lead” (the metal) sounds like “led” (the verb tense) and is spelled the same.
Good catch! Thanks, Dan.