Well, not really. But, I can turn to my friends and lovers at AskOxford.
guarantee
• noun 1 a formal assurance that certain conditions will be fulfilled, especially that a product will be of a specified quality. 2 something that makes an outcome certain. 3 variant spelling of GUARANTY. 4 less common term for GUARANTOR.
• verb (guarantees, guaranteed, guaranteeing) 1 provide a guarantee for something. 2 provide financial security for; underwrite. promise with certainty.
— ORIGIN perhaps from Spanish garante; related to WARRANTguaranty
/garr
nti/ (also guarantee)
• noun (pl. guaranties) 1 an undertaking to answer for the payment of a debt or for the performance of an obligation by another person liable in the first instance. 2 a thing serving as security for such an undertaking.
My guess, based on these, is that in truth, they are just variants. However, in common usage I'd say that the -ty spelling is for the noun more often than it is for the verb. Guarantee is probably the most common spelling for the verb (and also the noun, but perhaps to a lesser extent), though -ty is not technically incorrect.However, you might check dictionaries that are specific to legal or real estate jargon, as there could be a usage of the -ty spelling specific to those fields of which I remain blissfully unaware.
Perhaps the -ty is used when you're talking about a specific kind of legal document? While we citizens would use -tee to say "She made a guarantee that she wouldn't be late for the movie." Though in that case, you'd use the verb guarantee unless you were an idiot.
Of course, now both words may as well be in Cyrillic, I've puzzled at them for long enough.
Does that help? If not, you can always write to Oxford's Word and Language Service.
In your case, young Cupcake, I'd check and see what the style is in your field and if there isn't, use -ty for noun and -tee for verb.
My love for the OED knows no bounds.
3 comments:
Greetings, Mohan the Grammarian! Please pardon this innocent intrusion into your grammar topic o' the day. I just thought I'd say that I think you're on the right track with your reference to the use of guaranty in particular legal settings (especially when both words are used as nouns). Guaranty-with-a-y seems to be used in connection with financial transactions as the equivalent of "surety", whereas guarantee-with-the-double-e is more often used with regard to that little piece of paper you get when you buy something in a consumer tranaction that says that a particular item will perform in the manner in which it is designed to perform (a/k/a a "warranty"). Of course, if Ms. Cupcake wishes to add emphasis, I strongly believe that the "ee" ending is more appropriate for the superlative form in a first person context akin to your example (i.e., "I guaran-godddamn-tee you that I won't be late for the movie."). I, too, enjoy the occasional dalliance with the OED, but I would also recommend a visit to www.wordsmyth.net, a dictionary-thesaurus (and you thought they were extinct) that provides thorough American English definitions and examples and a great "sounds like" look-up function for the spelling impaired.
By the way, allow me to introduce myself. I'm a blogging newbie and pater familias to Sarah, friend once removed by way of Will, and I've spent a night or two hiding my toes from Catsby. I therefore have absolutely no relation to you or your online identity, but then, it's not stalking - it's networking, right? I am trying to get feedback for my site (cited later herein, I hope). Feel free to check out the site and comment on my musings, or my muse, who seems to be alternately satirical, whimsical, or just plain angry. I'm also looking to post some links to some of the spectacularly amusing (funny how that doesn't mean "without muse") entries I've stumbled across in a section called "Six degrees of blogging" or something even less original and I have selected your site to be listed, with your permission, of course, as an example of how to blog effectively (and by effectively, I mean either in a manner which is grammatically correct or by causing the casual reader to pass a cheese sandwich through his or her nose, thereby demonstrating the fundamentals of casual causality in an unforgettably painful, yet amusing fashion). Speaking of the above six degrees, I'd like to thank you for linking the GFY site, from whence I located the Pajiba.com movie review site, which happens to be published by the spouse of my current summer intern. Small world, indeed.
I really did start my own old person's blog for the purpose of venting my spleen, or rather the place where my spleen used to be. You can find a few paltry entries at http://posthumousdemocrazy.blogspot.com/
Trust me, there really is a Sanity Clause.
I am dumbfounded. Grammar angels really do walk among us. Thanks for such prompt service, Sheena. Also, you have taught me how to fish, if you know what I'm saying.
Sanity Clause (whose name makes me play that Marx Brothers bit over and over again in my head) - you have my permission to link to this here blog for whatever purpose. And our few degrees of separation are not so removed... I, too, have been prey to Young Catsby. She once bit through my fingernail (which was very painful, and I screamed in her face, which she found alarming... we've since patched things up).The Internets have shrunk our world considerably, to be sure.
I am flattered to be lifted as an example of effective grammar. I'm a bit on the obsessive side in that department. If you visit often enough, you'll find me sounding off about punctuation as well. My life is thrilling, I know.
Anyway, welcome. And many thanks for charging in on the guaranty/guarantee discussion.
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