Poetic Licence

We took a little census of the people on our team,

And the general consensus was things are not as they seem.

Some words use a simple ‘s’ to settle spelling strains,

While certain others celebrate soft ‘c’’s fancy refrains.

 

Moreover, you may realise that Britain’s hallowed ground

Prioritises ‘s’ when words utilise a ‘z’ sound,

While in the USA they take the polarizing view

That if a word sounds zeddish then it should be spelled ‘z’ too.

 

Of course this is just guidance on a subject so immense

That forcing words into a mould makes not a lick of sense.

If you sense the scent of incense from a censer with a sensor

And the censors are incensed, why, then it only grows immenser.

 

(Not immenser, I mean more immense, but that’s another topic).

A proofreader must be vigilant to details microscopic.

A prize may only be a prize wherever you may stand,

But equally it’s always prised if snatched out of your hand.

 

And though poetic licence lets us tinker with ideas,

We still are never licensed to let language grow unclear.

For instance, the above is quite correct in the UK,

But license is both noun and verb when in the USA.

 

In short, there are no shortcuts in the world of word conventions:

It’s full of inconsistencies and needs your full attention.

If finer points of spelling are a thing that you hold dear,

Congratulations, reader, you are in the right career!