Re: CHAT: Early Conlang Archives

John Cowan wrote:

> Sally Caves scripsit:
>
> > Confusion about this word has caused many Americans to
> > resort to "flammable," which I think is bad news, because if they now=
 write
> > that something is "inflammable," what do they mean?
>
> That isn't the safety issue.  "Flammable" has replaced "inflammable"
> on trucks and such because it warns you to beware; as Quine says,
> semi-literacy is not a capital crime.
>
> > Will or won't your
> > kid's pajamas burst into flames?    GGGGG
>
> In such contexts I usually see "non-flammable".  But "inflammable"
> is still used for all the metaphorical uses.
This discution reminds me on some words that usually puzzels me a little =
when I'm
reading English: aestetics and inhabitate, after they seams to me they ha=
ve
negating prefixes to the Spanish cognate: est=E9tica and habitar.  Even m=
ore, in
Spanish, the word "inhabitable" means a place you can not live in.

BTW, in Spanish "inflamable" is, undoubtely as longer as I know,
"(in)flammable".  It probably helps the fact that there is no verb like "=
flamar"
but "inflamar" is quite common... even if "inflamar" (usually reflexive) =
is not
quite the meaning of what can happen to something "inflamable".

> --
> John Cowan      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
>         You tollerday donsk?  N.  You tolkatiff scowegian?  Nn.
>         You spigotty anglease?  Nnn.  You phonio saxo?  Nnnn.
>                 Clear all so!  'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)