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From: gino@voder.UUCP (Gino Bloch)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Semantic Reversals
Message-ID: <692@voder.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 28-Feb-85 13:56:44 EST
Article-I.D.: voder.692
Posted: Thu Feb 28 13:56:44 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 4-Mar-85 04:22:13 EST
References: <108@ISM780.UUCP> <398@hou5h.UUCP> <3003@Cascade.ARPA>
Organization: National Semiconductor, Santa Clara
Lines: 22

[please don't burn this line]

> > Here's a curiosity:  why do "flammable" and "inflammable" mean virtually
> 
> The story I heard sounds reasonable but it may just be folk etymology
> rearing it's ugly head.  At one point certain products had to be
> labelled if they were flammable.  The word "inflammable" was invented
> to describe these things and meant the same thing as flammable;
> however, it sounded like it meant non-flammable and so the public was
> fooled/uninformed/whatever.
Does this shed light on the word "inflame"?*  "In" has two sources, one meaning
"not" and one meaning "in", which is also used as an intensifier.  Both are
eventually from Latin.  One English "un", from germanic, means "not", and
is a cognate of the first "in".  The other English "un" relates to "anti",
but to me is semantically indistinguishable from "un" #1.  It also has an
intensification function (unloosen, for instance).
My source is the American Heritage Dictionsry (the good old one with the
Indo-European glossary).
* NOT to be confused with  or other nettisms :-)
-- 
Gene E. Bloch (...!nsc!voder!gino)
The accidents expressed above are opinions.