Question

Please ___________ me as to how to get out of this mess.
A) Advice
B) Advise

Answer 1

Hint: In the above question we have to fill in the blank with the correct option from the given options. Both the options have similar sounds and almost similar spelling and thus can be easily confused for each other.

Complete answer:
Before choosing an option let us first understand the meaning of the given options and the difference between them:
Advice - It means a suggestion.
Advise- It means an act of giving a suggestion.

The very first thing that differentiates both of them from each other is that ‘advice’ is a noun precisely an abstract noun whereas ‘advise’ is a verb because it is ‘an act or an action’ of doing something.
Secondly, ‘c’ of advice takes ‘s’ sound and ‘s’ of advise takes ‘z’ sound.

So we can say that the act of giving advice is known as advise.

Now the given sentence is, Please ___________ me as to how to get out of this mess. If we see here then the speaker is asking for suggestions. Therefore, the listener will ‘give a suggestion’ i.e. she/he will carry out the ‘act of suggesting’.

Advise means the ‘act of suggesting’. Therefore, option ‘B’ is the correct answer and the correct sentence will be ‘ Please advise me as to how to get out of this mess.’

Note: ‘Advice’ and ‘Advise’ are homophones. Homophones are those words which have similar sounds but are different in their meaning, origin or spellings. They cannot be used synonymously.