The abuse of the noun, “advice” now rampant that, not even the language purists and masters, appear bothered any more, or that, they simply ignore the unwarranted misapplication of the disyllabic word, “advice.” But then, a greater number of users of the Queen’s English still insists on the correct usage of the vocabulary. It’s not uncommon these days to see people fall easily into the booby trap of “advice” and the twin sister, “advise,” in telling the audience about the person who advise and another receiving the advice.
And so, the confusion between the two: noun, “advice” and verb, “advise” lingers infinitely, again, to the disadvantage of the reading publics. Often, they are abandoned in the midst of this abnormally for them to decide where to draw the line, particularly for the English pundits who own their minds. But for the rest of us, say, for the man in the street, what matters most to him or her is how to put food on the table, and bother less about the choice of grammar to articulate one’s idea or thought. In all, this class of people, in short, swing among the two words, “advice” and “advise,” careless of the correct or right application of the two-syllable, but of identical pronunciation, and vocabulary.
They are the biggest offenders of misuse of the language, especially in pronunciation, speaking and syntax. For the established writers and learners, I do encourage all of you not to stop reading, but to continue to study every day of your life on earth. The day you close your eyes to the litany of books that come in the different genres or block your ears from listening to the News and other bits of information that filters in from the airwaves, is like shutting oneself out of the world. Having exhausted the little advice to remain relevant by cultivating the reading and listening culture, let’s launch into the verb, “advise,” how the dictionary interpreted it to appropriately engage the two-syllable grammar, “advice,” my main focus for now.
In conformity with Chambers 21st Century Dictionary, the verb, “advise,” means to “give advice to someone.” To recommend something; to act as an adviser to someone, from the adjective “advised;” one could either be well advised or ill-advised, written especially, in compounds. Put in plain English, is to inform, tell or let someone know of an impending matter, that, for instance, he or she needs to pay attention to. The adverb “advisedly” translates to “after a careful thought, on purpose,” the dictionary explains. Another sore point, repeatedly abused, is when some writers, including those who should know it, pluralise “advice” with the letter ‘s’ firmly inserted. It’s tantamount to gross abuse of the expression. The noun, “advice” stays in the singular or plural form in usage.
It’s considered a misnomer for one to impose the consonant ‘s’ on “advice” to erroneously read, “advices” as some persons write and speak. I am particularly addressing beginners and learners of the language to stop the abuse of “advice.” When one is so keen on referring to plenty or multitude of advice, plainly write, “pieces of advice.” The same fate befalls the vocabularies that are roundly misapplied; furniture, equipment, infrastructure and data, to name but few of them. Even the upward mobile individuals in the academia and corporate world are not spared in the mishandling of these popular and commonly used phrases.
What amazes or baffles me is the nonchalant attitude of the educated elites who still make the mistake of pluralising the nouns, “infrastructure,” “equipment,” “furniture,” “data,” etc. To sum it up, one can correctly write or speak, for example, pieces of furniture, pieces of information, pieces of data. Infrastructure that is never pluralised include, the basic inner structure of a society, organisation, or system, the permanent services and equipment such as roads, railways, bridges, factories and schools needed for a country to be able to function properly, Chambers 21st Century Dictionary, stressed.
