In the great tradition of "disgression"

[Laurence Horn]

(a multiblend "word" with three distinct meanings), I now bring
you..."deflam(m)atory". This morning, on ESPN radio, one of the hosts
referred to the "deflammatory comments" of Kansas City Chiefs running
back Larry Johnson toward the offensive strategies of his coach
Herman Edwards.  Hard to tell if he intended "defamatory" or
"inflammatory"--or, more likely, both.  And, if you're keeping score,
we have these raw google counts:

deflammatory       737
deflamatory       4,100

Hard to tell which is the "right" spelling, but neither one is in the
eggcorn database. Some of the g-hits correspond to a different sense
(e.g. lassi as a "taste-bud-deflammatory" to counteract spicy Indian
food) but most seem to be relevant, referring to libellous or
slanderous statements and such.

LH

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org