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Re: (In)flammable (WAS: Early Conlang Archives)

From:Dan Sulani <dnsulani@...>
Date:Thursday, March 11, 1999, 19:31
FFlores wrote:
<snip>

> The inflammable=fammable issue is one of those curious > "contradictions" of the English language that I've heard of. > The other one is "burn down" = (more or less) "burn up" (I > know they have different connotations, but the meaning is > actually the same!)
The situation is simplified in colloquial use: as a metaphor for anger, one uses "burn up" but not (to my knowledge, anyway) "burn down". As in: That really burns me up! (= that really makes me angry). But not *That really burns me down. I wonder why it works that way. Could it have something to do with "down" having a connotation of calming or sadness which doesn't match the idea of anger, whereas "up" has a connotation of activity, which goes better with the idea of anger? <snip> Dan Sulani -- likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a. A word is an awesome thing.