Adjectives

“Flammable” vs. “Inflammable” vs. “Nonflammable”

Adjectives, Common English Blunders, Outsider's Perspective

I sometimes hear “inflammable” when people mean “nonflammable”.

Problem:
The adjective “inflammable” is synonymous with the adjective “flammable”, not the adjective “nonflammable”.

Explanation:
There is a funny scene in an episode of “The Simpsons” in which Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, the cartoon character whose first language is NOT English, says, “Flammable. Inflammable. I don’t understand this language.”

The primary definition of the adjective “flammable” is combustible.

The primary definition of the adjective “inflammable” is combustible.

The primary definition of the adjective “nonflammable” is not combustible.

In other words, “inflammable” is synonymous with “flammable”. The typical distinction in usage of these two adjectives is that “flammable” is usually applied to physical things (e.g., “flammable gas tank”) whereas “inflammable” is usually applied figuratively (e.g., “inflammable feelings of the dissatisfied constituents”).

The misuse of “inflammable” as a synonym for “nonflammable” apparently comes from the mistaken belief that the prefix “in” in “inflammable” means not. The correct meaning of the prefix “in” in “inflammable” is in.

A simple way to remember that “inflammable” means combustible instead of not combustible is to remember the verb from which “inflammable” is constructed: “inflame”.

Solution:
Use “nonflammable” when you’re talking about something that is not combustible. Use “flammable” or “inflammable” when you’re talking about something that is combustible. For more refined usage, use “flammable” for literal things (such as cars or boats) and “inflammable” for figurative things (such as emotions).

“WordPress Red Womens T-Shirt”

Adjectives, Apostrophes, Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Nouns, Possessives

I saw this at shop.wordpress.net/usa/t-shirts.

Problems:
1. An apostrophe is missing.
2. The modifiers of “T-Shirt” are in a confusing order.

Explanations:
1. The first problem is that the plural noun “Women” requires a possessive apostrophe followed by an “s” to indicate the possession of the “T-Shirt” by the women.

I believe that the absence of a required possessive apostrophe can be attributable to:

  • A typographical error;
  • Ignorance about possessive apostrophes.

Given how often I see “Mens” and “Womens” (instead of “Men’s” and “Women’s”) in department stores, I doubt that “A typographical error” applies to this situation.

That leaves us with “Ignorance about possessive apostrophes”. I believe that this ignorance is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis. It’s simpler to write possessive words without apostrophes than to write them with apostrophes.

I blogged about possessive apostrophes yesterday (“NEW YEARS EVE WITH CARSON DALY”), too. Maybe something is in the water for the holidays.

2. The second problem is that the modifiers of “T-Shirt” are in a confusing order. I doubt that the writer meant to refer to “Red Women”, but one could easily infer this from the current order of the modifiers. This is analogous to “Green Lady’s Handbag” (when what is meant is “Lady’s Green Handbag”).

The solution to this confusion is to start from scratch. We have a T-shirt. Most important, it comes from WordPress, so it’s a WordPress T-shirt (with the noun “WordPress” acting as an adjective to modify the noun “T-shirt”). It comes in red, so it’s a red WordPress T-shirt (with the adjective “red” modifying the noun phrase “WordPress T-shirt”). It’s for women, so we put the possessive “women’s” in front of red WordPress T-shirt to get the solution.

Solution:
“Women’s Red WordPress T-Shirt”