Inflammable

[securespark]

Did you know it means the same as flammable?

You'd think it was the opposite, but no!

 

[eveares]

Did you know

Yes, but only since last year. Before that I thought it meant the same as nonflammable.

 

[EFLImpudence]

I think 'flammable' was introduced to avoid the confusion.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/inflame

 

[EFLImpudence]

Of course, another opposite is 'non-combustible'.

 

[rsgaz]

Gaz

 

[JohnW2]

Of course, another opposite is 'non-combustible'.

It must be Friday again

However, I'm not convinced that combustible and flammable/inflammable are, strictly speaking, always necessarily the same. As I understand it (as as the word implies), the later implies flames, but there are forms of combustion (like 'smouldering') which don't involve flames.

Kind Regards, John

 

[EFLImpudence]

...but no forms of flammable/inflammable which do not involve combustion.

 

[JohnW2]

...but no forms of flammable/inflammable which do not involve combustion.

Certainly true that way around - as I said, my uncertainties relate to t'other way around.

Kind Regards, John

 

[Deleted member 18243]

What about the word cleave?

It has two meanings, and both are the opposite of each other.

(cleave: to join together / cleave: to split apart)

 

[EFLImpudence]

I suspect those are, in fact, two different words which just happen to be spelt the same.

 

[winston1]

Originally when I were a lad flammable was American for inflammable. The opposites were non flammable and non inflammable. For some reason we have adopted this Americanism. Let's hope we don't adopt any more.

 

[JohnW2]

Originally when I were a lad flammable was American for inflammable.

... which, if true, to me would suggest that, just for once, the Americans probably 'got it right'!

I would imagine that 'flammable' has the same (intuitive/implied, if not dictionary) meaning on both sides of the water, and "in" is a very well-established 'negating prefix' in English, so 'inflammable' (meaning 'flammable'!) never really made much sense!

Kind Regards, John

 

[mfarrow]

It's on the top of Dad's mower petrol can, so I've known it since 8. Ish.

 

[crystal ball]

I only noticed the term flammable when I lived in Australia, previously in the UK it was inflammable

 

[THRIPSTER]

If you think of the original word as 'inflame' and then 'inflame-able' then the 'in' part begins to make more sense...................but confusing in a way that innocuous and nocuos are not