Defuse Or Diffuse?

 

I was reading an essay by Ben Dreyfuss and came upon this passage:

Two friends—one an American woman, one a foreign man—started to really go at it. I was sitting directly between them and kept trying to diffuse the situation since there were a lot of people there and everything was getting a bit personal.

I sort of thought, both of the below words kind of work, but I really like defuse--it seems more definite and therefore, stronger.

Diffuse is both a verb and an adjective, and refers to the spreading of something, or making it less concentrated. Defuse functions only as a verb and means "to remove the fuse from something."

 

Wordle 97

People Threatening To Leave Twitter Right Now...

US Marine Corps Aviation is the 7th largest Air Force In the World

 And the US has the top 2, plus 4th place positions in the top 10:

Top 10 Largest Military Branches in the World (by number of Military Aircraft) - Flight International 2022:

1. United States Air Force - 5,217
2. United States Army Aviation - 4,409
3. Russian Air Force - 3,863
4. United States Navy - 2,464
5. People's Liberation Army Air Force (China) - 1,991
6. Indian Air Force - 1,715
7. United States Marine Corps - 1,157
8. Egyptian Air Force - 1,062
9. Korean People's Army Air Force (North Korea) - 946
10. South Korean Air Force - 898

Where is the UK, France, Germany, Japan and Taiwan?

Some of them appear, if you look at combined forces:

Top 10 Nations with the Most Military Aircraft (All Branches Combined) - Flight International 2022:

1. United States - 13,247 (5,217 Air Force, 4,409 Army, 2,464 Navy, 1,157 Marines)
2. Russia - 4,173 (3,863 Air Force, 310 Navy)
3. China - 3,285 (1,991 Air Force, 857 Army, 437 Navy)
4. India - 2,186 (1,715 Air Force, 232 Army, 239 Navy)
5. South Korea - 1,595 (898 Air Force, 611 Army, 69 Navy, 17 Marines)
6. Japan - 1,449 (746 Air Force, 392 Army, 311 Navy)
7. Pakistan - 1,386 (810 Air Force, 544 Army, 32 Navy)
8. Egypt - 1,062 (1,053 Air Force)
9. Turkey - 1,057 (612 Air Force, 398 Army, 47 Navy)
10. France - 1,055 (570 Air Force, 306 Army, 179 Navy)

If you start to rate based on quality and quantity, the west begins to shine--I include Australia, Japan, S. Korea as part of the west.

Top 15 Military Branches with the Most Powerful Air Fleets (by TrueValue Rating) - WDMMA 2021:

1. United States Air Force - 242.9
2. United States Navy - 142.4
3. Russian Air Force - 114.2
4. United States Army Aviation - 112.6
5. United States Marine Corps - 85.3
6. Indian Air Force - 69.4
7. People's Liberation Army Air Force (China) - 63.8
8. Japan Air Self-Defence Force - 58.1
9. Israeli Air Force - 58.0
10. French Air Force - 56.3
11. British Royal Air Force - 55.3
12. South Korean Air Force - 53.4
13. Italian Air Force - 51.9
14. Royal Australian Air Force - 51.7
15. People's Liberation Army Naval Air Force (China) - 49.3

Wordle 96

 

Wordle 95

 

For the first time, I used my penultimate turn to eliminate/confirm S, W, M and I and it was a good idea:  I would have used that turn on WINCE, then SINCE, then PINCE, then MINCE.  So it would have taken 6 turns instead of 4.

Wordle 94

 

Wordle 93

 

Caught In Comfort

 My idea for a Cotton Council add campaign.  Get it?  It also sounds like, cotton comfort.

The ads could feature attractive models who are wearing stylish and comfortable cotton garments being "caught" by surprise.

Now, let's see if I invented this.  (Goes to Google)  doesn't look as if this type of advertising campaign has been tried.

I hereby offer the phrase and idea to any council or group that wants to use it, for 1% of the total spend on media space--this would include any video, images or audio versions of the concept.

Wordle 92

 

Wordle 91