Strewth the spelling of English is weird!

[old man emu]

Would you rather be described as a reck pilot or a reckless one?

 

 

[facthunter]

Better than a wreck pilot. Nev

 

 

[old man emu]

Better than a wreck pilot. Nev

Oh! You've seen the planes at the local Renta-Wings?

 

 

[facthunter]

I got on a Viscount at Coolan hotta years ago and I commented at the door, sheesh the only thing holding this thing together is the paint. (Got red wine in a coffee cup on the way top Melbourne though) (needed it) A few weeks later the wing came of a similar one going into Port Hedland ( wing spar failure) and the tail horiz stabilisers came off one in a storm just of the end of runway 16 and it went into Botany bay . Took days to find it.. A burning engine took the wing off one going in to Winton and another with a similar problem managed to Land at Mangalore. Nev

 

 

[Yenn]

If you put "in" before a word it usually means that the word will not work, ie.. in before capable means you are not capable. How goes it with flammable?

 

 

[old man emu]

Inflammable and flammable are synonyms and mean "able to burn" even though they look like opposites. "Inflammable" comes from the Latin verb inflammare, which means "to cause to catch fire". "Flammable" was coined later from a translation of the Latin verb flammare ("to catch fire"), which inflammare is related to. Inflammable came into English in the early 1600s. Things were fine until 1813, when a scholar translating a Latin text coined the English word flammable from the Latin flammare.

 

In English, we think of "in-" as a prefix that means "not": inactive means "not active," inconclusive means "not conclusive," inconsiderate means "not considerate." Therefore, inflammable should mean "not flammable." To avoid confusion, choose flammable when you are referring to something that catches fire and burns easily, and use the relatively recent nonflammable when referring to something that doesn't catch fire and burn easily.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

I am intoxicated by your insights.

 

 

[Cosmick]

Have you ever seen a "gruntled" post office worker

 

 

[old man emu]

"Disgruntled" is an example of what lexicologists call an "unpaired opposite" - a word that has no opposite. A common misuse of the expected paired opposite of "disgruntled" is found in P G Wodehouse’s The Code of the Woosters, published in 1938: “He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.” So, if you were the opposite of disgruntled you would be pleased, satisfied, and contented. "Gruntled" was an invention by Wodehouse for comic effect.

 

The assumption behind is that putting dis- on the front of a word makes it negative in meaning in some way. Sometimes, however — very rarely and only in old words — dis- is what the grammarians call an intensifier: it makes an existing sense stronger. A second grammatical term, frequentative (or frequentive if you prefer). This is a trick of word formation, now obsolete, in which an ending created a verb to suggest that some action is often repeated. The one used for this most often is -le. The verb gruntle is the frequentative of grunt. The first sense of gruntle was of a repeated grunt, especially the noise that pigs make in company. Gruntle appeared in the fifteenth century; by the end of the next century it had begun to be used to mean grumbling or complaining.

 

If we put the intensifier and the frequentative together in one word, disgruntled has its current meaning a state of “moody discontent, sulky dissatisfaction or ill-humour”.

 

So, "disgruntled" is an adjective and "gruntle" is a verb. A disgruntled post office worker will often gruntle.

 

 

[Litespeed]

As long as he does not go postal.

 

We leave that to the yanks in the hope they run out of ammo before getting over here.

 

 

[red750]

OME, that reminds me of a guy I worked with years ago who used the word mantle as opposite of dismantle, instead of assemble , as in "Mantle the shelves over by the window."

 

 

[Cosmick]

OME you would like this Guy, Professor Roly Sussex on ABC Brisbane

 

A word in your ear

 

 

[Yenn]

From what he posts here I think Roly Sussex, my well be OME.

 

I appreciate both of them for their insights into the language. They keep me tracted.

 

 

[old man emu]

I'm not professorial at all. I just love words and usage. Besides the Internet opens whole volumes of information about all sorts of things.

 

 

[spacesailor]

". Besides the Internet opens whole volumes of information about all sorts of things. "

 

How did we manage before "Mr Google".

 

spacesailor

 

 

[old man emu]

"Ask the Wife"

 

Still works!

 

 

[Cosmick]

How did we manage before "Mr Google".spacesailor

You had to look it up in the "Encyclopedia Britannica" or in your "Funk and Wagnalls" ( I only know of that one from "Laugh In", say goodnight Dick )

 

 

[old man emu]

Sock it to me! Sock it to me! Sock. It. To. Meeeeee

 

 

[spacesailor]

NO books in my child-hood home !.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[willedoo]

NO books in my child-hood home !.spacesailor

What did you do, spacey? Read the cereal packets or something.

 

 

[facthunter]

You used to get stuff on fish in SOLVOL packets and Saltbush Bill and Ginger Meggs in the comics. There's no excuse to be illiterate..Nev

 

 

[spacesailor]

Spent MY child-hood in hospital !.

 

So can't understand lawyer-speak.

 

spacesailor

 

.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

[ATTACH]50260._xfImport[/ATTACH]

[facthunter]

Trump thinks HE knows everything.In his own opinion He's a GENIUS and has said so many times. It's amazing the world has managed to get here before he came to help. Still It's god's will according to most Republicans and we are told HE works in strange ways, and Trump fills the bill there. Geez is this really happening? Nev

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

All sorts of bad things were predicted in Revelations, but the world being held to ransom by an egotistic, elderly baby wasn't one of them.