On 3 Sep 2010 08:25:13 -0700, gerh...@valley.net (Gerhard Postpischil) wrote:
>> Then there are all the Janus words, which are spelled the >> same, pronounced the same, but have opposite meanings >> Fortunately, there are not many. Here are a few in English: > >And potentially the most dangerous: inflammable. The word "Flammable" was created because of a fear that some people might think "inflammable" meant recursively "not flammable". So the new word was created to prevent people from lighting up cigarettes next to "inflammable signs". But I have seen zero evidence that this danger was more than theoretical. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
