Jan 29, 2009

Bomb-Holé

An astonishingly common typo seen these days is the use of the word "diffusing" in the context of taking the fizz out of a bomb. Google returns 41,700 search results for "diffuse bomb". Even respected newspapers occasionally spread the shrapnel, as seen in this article (unless the man quoted saying that spelt it out for the reporter).

I hope it doesn't gain currency like "revert". That would make it a deficult situation.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice post. Yes, I did ask why they used "diffuse" rather than "defuse". Saw it in many places. I was told that "defuse" is the right usage. However, "diffuse" used in the context of bombs means "making the bombs less severe". And I thought Maybe! The "revert" thing, I never knew :p Wow!"prepone" was something I waited to hear from people so I could say "Nope, it is advanced" ;-)
-Pi

J Ramanand said...

Pi: I'd like my bombs unplugged please, not just made less severe :-)
Good luck with the prepone-hunting.

Anonymous said...

Lol, You bet! :-)

-Pi