In vs. De

I was recently accused of making up a word by one of the clients at work:

"Inactivate"

They actually told me, in writing, that it wasn't a word.  They said that the word is supposed to be "Deactivate"

And the client was a school.

I, of course, asked my husband (who was sitting right next to me when I got this challenging email) and HE thought  that Inactivate wasn't a word.

Now, unlike former President Bush, I'm not one to make up words.

This really, REALLY irritated me.

So, I did what any modern person with a similar problem would do:

I ran a Google search.

And what did I find?  MANY, many dictionaries showing that Inactivate IS a word.  It means to render inert, non-functional,paralyzed, inactive (duh on the last one).

And "Deactivate"?

It means something similar:  to turn off, usually a computer.

So, what I found hilarious was that BOTH inactivate and deactivate are words...but inactivate is usually used for biology and chemistry (e.g. INERT or PARALYZED) and deactivate is a more modern word usually used for computers.  I found it hilarious because, I'm a scientist by trade..my husband is a techie.

But the morale of the story, which I find important to point out:

The school was wrong.

Make sure you always check their facts.