Excuze me, please.

I'm amuzed but confuzed about diffuse and defuse. Is there any histoical reazon why we uze the s for the z-sound (especially after a long-u, it seems)? Shall we peruze the history?

Not quite sure what your question is. The s in defuse and use are etymological, but are pronounced as z. It's just how the (bizarre) orthography of English developed, oftentimes with no connection to how the language actually sounded when spoken. Fuse (alternate spelling fuze) comes from Latin fusus via Italian fuso.

Okay, but how did the verb form of "use" come to rhyme with "ooze", but the noun form rhymes with "moose"? Did they start out as different words that eventually ended up getting spelled the same, and/or is this some sort of common pronunciation phenomenon?

I'm guessing it's to do with the fact that the noun is from Old French us, pronounced with [s], and the verb is from Old French user, prononced with [z]. For the same reason, we have advice and advise.

I could be wrong; I don't know any Old French phonology.

But I know that a similar thing happened in words derived from Old English: compare house as a noun and verb. In Old English, [s] and [z] were allophones of /s/. The voiced sound occured between vowels, and the voiceless sound occurred elsewhere. So the verb house is from Old English hūsian pronounced with [z]. But the noun house is from Old English hūs, pronounced with [s]. And the plural houses with [z] is a relic of the Old English [s] - [z] variation.

For the same reason we have voiceless - voiced alternations in breath and breathe, and teeth and teethe, and in theif thieves, knife knives etc.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

OK--- maybe I'm being ob-TOOS, but this thread seems like it's in a shorthand I never learned. (1)What noun? Do we mean the adjective dih-FYOOS? (2)What is the Old French us, pronounced with [s]? (3)What has de-fuse (v.) got to do with it? Or are we talking about the verb diffuse (dih-fyooz).

... from off the top of my head ....

defuse = (v) to remove the fuse from (as in a bomb)

difuse = (v) to spread evenly throughout the atmosphere by molecular motion

Asa just sent me a great poem that is very relevant to this discussion. All of you have probably read it before, but I hadn't. Since it's his poem, I will let him post it.

What noun?

The difference in pronunciation between use the noun and use the verb.

quote:

Originally posted by bethree5:
OK--- maybe I'm being ob-TOOS, but this thread seems like it's in a shorthand I never learned. (1)What noun? Do we mean the adjective dih-FYOOS? (2)What is the Old French us, pronounced with [s]? (3)What has de-fuse (v.) got to do with it? Or are we talking about the verb diffuse (dih-fyooz).

Ah, see, I thought you were talking about use, not diffuse. My mistake.