希硫酸, 稀硫酸. My dictionary says they are both “dilute sulfuric acid”. What is the
difference in usage here? Is there just one optional radical?

English has “sulfuric” and “sulphuric”, and that’s an American/Commonwealth
regional difference.
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2020-01-25T13:39:15.950
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word-choice spelling homophonic-kanji kanji-choice jōyō-kanji
希硫酸, 稀硫酸? What’s the difference?
The matter is in the permitted kanji. The kanji 稀, 'rare,' is the proper
choice for the word (cf. Chinese xīliúsuān 稀硫酸 same). It, however, is not
included in the Jōyō list (though it is permitted for names), so, say,
chemistry school textbooks cannot use it to teach. The need to write words
with rare kanji frequently leads to the phenomenon called _kakikae_ , when
graphically similar (and preferrably identically read) characters are
substituted instead. 希, however, _is_ Jōyō (and even 4th grade), so using it
as a replacement seems a valid idea, though its meaning is 'hope,' and so it
is a worse choice. Similar case is replacing 綺麗 by 奇麗 to avoid the usage of
non-Jōyō 綺, though, strictly saying, 綺麗 just means 'beatiful,' while 奇麗 should
mean 'astoundingly, rare-to-find beatiful.'

Note. Strictly saying, 希 as a replacement for 稀 is neither recent nor
Japanese-only; it is amply known from Chinese, and the second round of
simplifications in the 1970s even tried to abolish 稀 altogether, replaced by
希.
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2020-01-25T14:06:34.693
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answer