Real Life Adventures by Gary Wise and Lance Aldrich for October 07, 2014
October 06, 2014
October 08, 2014
Transcript:
Woman: Boy, the whole world seems to be full of flammable situations. Man: Actually, it's inflammable. But they changed it because people always got it wrong. Woman: So, should my reaction to the fact that you're always correcting me be flammable or inflammable?
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From The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition:
Usage Note: Historically, flammable and inflammable mean the same thing. However, the presence of the prefix in- has misled many people into assuming that inflammable means “not flammable” or “noncombustible.” The prefix in- in inflammable is not, however, the Latin negative prefix in-, which is related to the English un- and appears in such words as indecent and inglorious. Rather, this in- is an intensive prefix derived from the Latin preposition in. This prefix also appears in the word enflame. But many people are not aware of this derivation, and for clarity’s sake it is advisable to use only flammable to give warnings.
Now you know.