A Hot (or not so hot) Topic

[Thadeus]

OK, I was just dropping a comment in another forum, but as CC pointed out, I may as well come right out and ask in the correct forum.

We all know that Flammable and Inflammable mean the same thing.

So why not both Inflammatory speech and Flammatory speech?

 

[CajunCenturion]

Lots of confusion on these two words, despite them having different Latin (or are they different?) roots, and the dual meaning of the Latin prefix "in-".

Don't have time to go into great detail at the moment, so maybe others will fill in the details. If not, I'll provide some details when I can.

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[Dimandja]

Flammatory needs a prefix, such as "anti", and is mainly used in medical lingo: "anti flammatory drug".

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[CajunCenturion]

Wow, that conference call was short and sweet.

Latin had two verbs 'flammere' and 'inflammere' which are the roots of flammable and inflammable respectively. The difference centers around the Latin prefix 'in-' which has two different meanings. The first, and more common meaning is 'not', but the second meaning, and the one that applies here, means 'into' and acts as an intensifier. To some, the difference means burnable vs explosive. For example, wood is burnable (flammable) but gasoline is explosive (inflammable). Others think it is more of a degree of difficulty. Wood is more difficult to turn into flames than gasoline, thus gasoline is inflammable (easily into flames - inflammable) whereas wood is flammable (not easily into flame - just flammable). So it is from the original Latin that we have both words. Over history, the difference has been lost so that today, both words mean what was traditionally, inflammable.

Today you should avoid using inflammable because of the negative confusion.

You should use 'flammable' and 'non-flammable' to avoid any ambiguity.

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[MakeItSo]

All reference I have found so far indicates, that both terms are in general equivalent. However I have the impression, that there might be a difference for chemists/firefighters.

I am speculating a bit here:
- flammable material can be easily set on fire, but has to be heated above its flashing point first.
- inflammable material can also be easily set on fire, but is already above its flashing point at room temperature.
-->thus easier to inflame



[blue]An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind. - "Mahatma" Mohandas K. Gandhi[/blue]

 

[Thadeus]

Today you should avoid using inflammable because of the negative confusion.

You should use 'flammable' and 'non-flammable' to avoid any ambiguity

Great post CC, but the actual question posed regards Inflammatory and Flammatory...

Applying the logic of your post, we should be using "Flammatory" in the sentence:

"The mayor's inflammatory comment was judged to be the reason for the city's widespread rioting."

Now I'm not saying we should extend your reasoning or that you intended it that way. I'm just refocusing the discussion...

~Thadeus

 

[CajunCenturion]

It is probably not that important whether you use flammatory or inflammatory with respect to personal conduct because in context, it's fairly clear. That being said, I would opt for flammatory, if for no other reason than consistency. Although there is a verb 'inflame', there is no noun 'inflame'. Within these fora, a post can be a flame but cannot be an inflame. Therefore, I would stick with flammatory and not use inflammatory.

With respect to safety issues, I would definitely not use inflammatory. It is not worth risking a misinterpretation.


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[Dimandja]

>Therefore, I would stick with flammatory and not use inflammatory.

I haven't seen any reference of such use of "flammatory". Have you?

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