Mining law and extraction

The sixteenth entry is a licença de uso de explosivos, and the English word waiting for it carries a spelling rule a Portuguese reader has no reason to expect, because Portuguese does the whole job with one form: a licença is the paper and licenciar is the act. In British English the paper is « a licence », with a c, and the act is « to license », with an s, and the two are pronounced exactly alike. So an inspector licenses a quarry and then issues its licence, and « the explosives licence is personal » is right where « the explosives license » is not. The same pair runs through a small family: « practice » is the noun and « practise » the verb, « advice » the noun and « advise » the verb. The second pair is audible, and that is what gives the rule away; the first is not, which is why it is got wrong daily. One warning for reading: American spelling has abandoned the distinction and writes « license » for both, so the spelling tells you where a document was drafted and nothing more.