Re: [OT] Insure/Ensure [was Re: A sensible plan for non-free]
I demand that David Palmer may or may not have written...
> Ben Burton wrote:
>>> Although ensure and insure are generally interchangeable, only insure
>>> is now widely used in American English in the commercial sense of "to
>>> guarantee persons or property against risk."
>> Moreover, my Macquarie (which rocks btw, at least if you're Australian)
>> says that using "insure" in Ean's sense (i.e., making sure that something
>> happens) is chiefly just a US English thing.
So does a nearby Collins Concise.
> They used to have separate meanings, but now they are commonly accepted
> as synonymous.
They're quite distinct, IME, and I'm careful to maintain that distinction.
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