Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
chaff, chafe (vv.)
Chaff (rhymes usually with graph) means “to josh or tease mildly”; chafe (rhymes with safe) means “to annoy, to rub against, to vex, or to become irritated.” Now and then you may also see chafe spelled chaff, as in Dad was chaffing at the delay. The Oxford English Dictionary reports examples of this spelling from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, but when inexperienced persons use this spelling today, it’s usually because they are mispronouncing chafe to rhyme with graph.
