Explosive eggcorn

[Chris Waigl]

On 17 Jul 2009, at 12:19, Arnold Zwicky wrote:

> On Jul 17, 2009, at 3:40 AM, Bill Palmer wrote:
>>
>> From CNN's homepage this morning.  I believe this qualifies.
>>
>> Police found an unexploded bomb on the 18th floor of the J.W.
>> Marriott =
>> Hotel, but they were able to diffuse it.=20
>
> in the ecdb, an early entry in fact:
>
> http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/33/diffuse/


I've seen this one in the other direction, too, as in "defuse the
poison" or "I put a silver, white and black leopard print scarf over
the lamp to defuse the light a little." So for some, the two verbs
seem to be fusing.

However, defuse>diffuse makes more sense to me.

Best,

--
Chris Waigl -- http://chryss.eu -- http://eggcorns.lascribe.net
twitter: chrys -- friendfeed: chryss

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