I was recently writing a slightly cynical commentry about another repetition in the history of Australian politics:
"At least Clive Palmer and Malcom Turnbull may be responsible for their own sentances."
This only works, as a double-edged Sword of Damacles, if the two meanings of the word are spelt differently, otherwise it's only a spelling mistake, or at best, a homonym, with no apologies to our previous, possibly homęphobic PM.
Like many others, I looked up a few thick paper dictionaries without being able to confirm or deny the existance of the prior spelling.
I don't have my late father's Oxford dictionary; the full version took up more than a metre [c. 39 inches] of bookshelves. He was an English History teacher, and he would have easily explained the early etymology, such as whether the Middle English spelling involved a dipthong.
I phoned my wife, who was educated at a very well established school in the 1960s, and is regarded as the spelling expert in our immediate family;
she was taught that 'sentance' existed, and did not refer to a grammatical string of words.
My vote is simply to re-instate the old spelling of sentance, to denote a form or term of punishment, usually handed out by a judge or magistrate.
If people can invent new words and have them added to Websters' and Macquarie dictionaries, we should be able to take charge of the language, to ensure greater clarity and to maintain such important distinctions.
BTW, I was informed, also, at a grammar school in the 1960s, that antidisestablishmentarianism was the longest English word; this may no longer be the case.
