Robin Laing wrote:
Michael Hennebry wrote:
On Wed, 30 Aug 2006, Grumpy_Penguin wrote:
I had to explain to an English teacher the difference between fuse
and fuze
What was the distinction that you were trying to make?
In the dictionary I just checked, the definitions refer
to each other and pretty much make them synonyms.
after He marked the latter as mispelled [BTW the spell checker missed
it too]
The spell checker got it right.
Short rare words should be flagged.
On a qwerty keyboard, s and z are adjacent.
Sesquipedalian, though rare, is unlikely to be a mistake.
Fuse - Something to protect electric/electronic circuits.
Fuze - Something you lite to set off an explosive.
US dictionaries use fuse for both.
So do British ones:
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/fuse_1?view=uk
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/fuse_2?view=uk
though the second offers "fuze" as an alternative spelling.
Paul.
