You’ve got to love confusing homonyms – or perhaps near homonyms in this case. So often we know what we mean but then we just spell the first thing that comes to our mind. Spell-check doesn’t help in these cases, does it? Maybe Microsoft has someone working on that. Or they have enough to worry about at present. Maybe there’s hope in Google.
Either way, until a tech giant saves the spelling impaired, here are some simple reminders. “Defuse” means “to make less dangerous, tense, or embarrassing.” Its simplest use is “to remove the fuse from” – as in a bomb. With a pocket knife and duct tape. While doing work for the Phoenix Foundation. (Okay, perhaps the MacGyver piece is unnecessary for the exact definition, but you get the idea.) “Diffuse,” on the other hand means “to spread or scatter widely; to disseminate.” For the physics buffs out there, its simplest definition is “to spread by diffusion.” For those of us for whom this means nothing, think about “diffused light” – sunlight breaking through the morning fog as it lifts off the river. Illuminating a chase of one of Murdock’s lackeys by a spy in aviator sunglasses and a bomber jacket. A spy who’s rigged up an explosion downstream with a shoe lace, a pocket watch, and a potato. (Too much?)
In other news, a MacGyver graphic novel was released today. Who knew?