Inflammable means flammable? What a country!
Comment on Aussie Crispmas
Treevan@aussie.zone 10 months ago
Tinsel is highly flammable. Or is it inflammable?
Comment on Aussie Crispmas
Treevan@aussie.zone 10 months ago
Tinsel is highly flammable. Or is it inflammable?
Inflammable means flammable? What a country!
Thanks, Dr Nick!
LemmysMum@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Joke killer:
Inflame - to burst into fire.
Inflammable - has the potential to burst into fire. (eg. explode, detonate, erupt)
Flammable - has the potential to be set on fire. (eg. burn, ember, catch) Non-flammable - cannot be set on fire.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Blame the Ancient Greeks for this wonderful bit of English.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 10 months ago
Oh, so that’s why the doctors had to remove my appendix!
But going back to being serious. My understanding is that the use of the term “flammable” basically only arose as an attempt to remove the ambiguity caused by the “in” prefix in “inflammable”. Many organisations now prefer to avoid the term inflammable in favour of flammable for precisely that reason.
[Source]
LemmysMum@lemmy.world 10 months ago
It’s a 400 year time period, you could make just about any valid excuse for the use of either, both have been used together for 200 years.