Every time I see or hear this word I am confused. I know that it means that can easily catch fire. But why? Shouldn’t it mean the opposite? Think about combustible and incombustible. They are opposites. But flammable and INFLAMMABLE are synonyms!
It made no sense.
Until I went to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. And it
“Combustible and incombustible are opposites but flammable and inflammable are synonyms. Why? The in-of incombustible is a common prefix meaning “not,” but the in- of inflammable is a different prefix. Inflammable comes from Latin inflammare (“to inflame”), itself from in– (here meaning “in” or “into”) plus flammare (“to flame”). Flammable also comes from flammare. In the early 20th century, firefighters worried that people might think inflammable meant “not able to catch fire,” so they adopted flammable and nonflammable as official safety labels and encouraged their use to prevent confusion.”
The Ragtag Daily Prompt for Sunday is:
INFLAMMABLE
Have a great time creating a post around this word. Then post your creation here with a pingback (or copy and paste to the comments). Make sure you use the tags “RDP”, “Ragtag Daily Prompt”, and “INFLAMMABLE”.
Come back and read what everyone else has written. That’s the fun!
See you next Sunday!
This was educational–thanks for the clarification.
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Like “thawed” and “unthawed,” many people have these two words confused.
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