Re: USAGE: "deduct" as synonym for "deduce"

>>Well, I was looking it up because a correspondent referred to
"deducting" something from a web page. As he's a non-native speaker, I
assumed it was an error, but looked it up anyway, and there you go.<snip>
Note that I was speaking of the latter; I have never seen any examples of
the former, nor do my dictionaries list "deduct/subtract" as a meaning for
"deduce".
The -duc[et] words do seem to form a rather odd constellation, though.<<

According to the lovely online edition of OED that my college lets me use
for free, decuct and deduce do indeed come from the same Latin root. From
the entry for deduct:
"[f. L. deduct-, ppl. stem of L. deducere to lead or bring down or away,
lead off, withdraw, f. DE- I. 1, 2 + ducere to lead, draw. Cf. DEDUCE: the
two verbs were formerly to a great extent synonymous, but are now
differentiated in use, by the restriction of this to sense 1.]

1. trans. To take away or subtract from a sum or amount. (The current
sense.) Now said usually of amounts, portions, etc., while subtract is
properly said only of numbers; but deduct was formerly used also of the
arithmetical operation."

All the other senses (6 others in total) are marked obsolete. Even without
OED, though, most native speakers could tell you that deduct and deduce
are not used in the same way anymore.

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