Michele Fauble Dec 28, 2020:

@ Tomasso Interesting discussion about ‘flammable’ and ‘inflammable’, but not relevant to the Danish ‘“brandfarlige og brændbare væsker”.

Tomasso Dec 28, 2020:

absolutely right In school we were told they were EXACTLY the same, the quote in the Guardian, was one of many answeres (I did think I had learned something new) It is followed by another quote....Fowler's suggests that the modern usage of flammable was introduced precisely to prevent the "in" prefix implying "not" (which it seems to in just about every other case). It goes on to acknowledge that the opposite, "non-flammable", has met with only "partial success". Perhaps we need a more acceptable opposite... how about "incombustable", which is in the dictionary as a negative and means the same thing.

https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-78567,...
Example of words changing in the past? and also an example of the old game Telephone, things take on a life of theri own as they are repeated.

Christopher Schröder Dec 28, 2020:

@Tomasso I think that’s the danger of trusting the first Google hit... That’s just one person’s opinion... Everything else I can see supports them being synonymous as I always thought

Michele Fauble Dec 27, 2020:

For what it’s worth, Google translate gives “flammable and flammable” for “brandfarlig og brændbar”, yet gives “flammable” for “brandfarlig” and “combustible” for “brændbar” when each is entered separately.

Tomasso Dec 27, 2020:

my 2 cents quote.....Flammable and inflammable do not mean the same thing. If something is flammable it means it can be set fire to, such as a piece of wood. However, inflammable means that a substance is capabble of bursting into flames without the need for any ignition. ... The opposite of both words is non-flammable.

Maybe they meant flammable and inflammable,?? which has always been confusing.???

Christopher Schröder Dec 24, 2020:

Good call! The Danish is brandfarlige og brændbare væsker, which means burn dangerous and burn able liquids literally. So yes, machine translation. The definitions in the regulation say the difference is whether the flash point is below or above 93 degrees. Which I believe makes them flammable and combustible. I never knew the difference. Flammable and flammable 🙄😂