> > Just look at "flammable" vs "inflammable": "inflammable" was once misunderstood to mean its
> > opposite, and now it's common AND accepted for "inflammable" to mean "flammable." Is there anyone
> > here that can question that this was a bad idea and should have been fought back when the misuse
> > was first occurring?
>
> I've assumed in the past that "inflammable" came to be understood to mean "capable of burning" not
> because of a reversal of meaning or a confusion with "flammable", but because both words have
> somewhat synonymous roots. I think that Sam and many other conscientious writers in English break
> "inflammable" into "in-" and "flammable", which indeed makes it seem that people are erroneously
> attaching a negative prefix to a word without changing the meaning of the word to its opposite.
>
> My (unresearched) guess has always been that "inflammable" is, instead, to be broken into
> "inflame" and "-able", in which case it is given the perfectly natural meaning of "able to be
> inflamed". In that case, "inflammable" (able to be inflamed) and "flammable" (flame-capable) are
> indeed synonyms, although "in-" has the appearance of the negative prefix, making it seem
> that they should be antonyms. Let me emphasize that this is a guess that I've never researched,
> and if I'm woefully mistaken, please do let me know. :-)

Guess what, Iss?

You're right.
"Inflammable" comes from "inflame", not from "flammable".

That means Sam's wrong. Sorry, Sam.

Pa"Reader's Digest Oxford Complete Wordfinder"ul