Argument, contention, controversy, difference, fighting, quarreling, and dissension refer to disagreement and conflict. Quarrel applies chiefly to a verbal disagreement between individuals or groups and is used with reference to a large variety of situations, from a slight and petty difference of opinion to a violent altercation: It was little more than a domestic quarrel. Their quarrel led to the bar room brawl.
Dissension usually implies a profound disagreement and bitter conflict. It also applies chiefly to conflict within a group or to members of the same group.
In July 1831, a volcano off the coast of Sicily erupted. Out of the water rose an island in the Mediterranean Sea. A British Royal Navy ship observed it and named it Graham Island after Sir James Graham, the First Lord of the Admiralty. Sicily also saw the military importance of the island and named it Firdinandèa after the King of Sicily. Not to be out done, the French claimed it and desired to make the island a resort. Immediately, diplomatic wrangling broke out. For five months conflict raged in newspapers and elsewhere as the different nations fought over the 200-foot high rock. Tourists traveled to the island to see its two small lakes. Sailors watched it when sailing by it. Then on December 17, 1831, officials reported no trace of the island. As dynamically as the sea mount had appeared, it disappeared, defusing the conflict of ownership.
