diffuse/ defuse

[neil]

on 29/1/05 10:58 pm, Jonathan Lighter at wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      diffuse/ defuse
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> These verbs are increasingly confused in writing, with "defuse" threatening to
> oust the other.
>
> Anyone else notice this?
>
> I gave a high school English teacher the following inquisitorial test:
>
> "Which is the write word?    'The ghostly vapor was slowly (diffused /
> defused) throughout the haunted tax office.'"
>
> She immediately selected "defused" as correct.  Under further inquisition she
> confessed that "diffused" just looked wrong."
>
> E pede Herculem,
>
> JL
>
Was that the rong write?
Neil Crawford