It's in the damn stylebook

If you say that someone "refuted" someone else, you're usually taking sides, which you probably don't mean to do.

To refute is to prove wrong. The word you're usually looking for is dispute, or contradict, or deny, or rebut.

But when you say that Person A refuted Person B, you're saying that Person A is right, that Person B is wrong. You're declaring a winner in the dispute, when all you usually mean to do is to say that Person A presented contrary evidence or, sometimes, flat out denied Person B's claim without evidence.

So it's not just using the wrong word, like lay for lie, or affect for effect. It's being unfair.

It's a rare case where you're in a position to say that one person absolutely proved that the other person is wrong. I guess a person could refute an obituary by showing up alive, if you have two forms of identification.

And it's in the damn stylebook.