Korean Job Discussion Forums

[NYC_Gal 2.0]

[Privateer]

There was a thread about this just recently.

Typical annoying mistakes:

loose for lose
everyday for every day
definately for definitely
wierd for weird
you're for your or vice versa
etc

[Privateer]

[NYC_Gal 2.0]

From the article that I posted that you didn't read:

Blame it on Latin and its tricky prefixes. In the beginning, there was "inflammable," a perfectly nice English word based on the Latin "inflammare," meaning "to kindle," from "in" (in) plus "flamma" (flame). "Inflammable" became standard English in the 16th century. So far, so good.

Comes the 19th century, and some well-meaning soul dreamt up the word "flammable," basing it on a slightly different Latin word, "flammare," meaning "to set on fire." There was nothing terribly wrong with "flammable," but it never really caught on. After all, we already had "inflammable," so "flammable" pretty much died out in the 1800's.

"But wait," you say, "I saw 'flammable' just the other day." Indeed you did. "Flammable" came back, one of the few successful instances of social engineering of language.

The Latin prefix "in," while it sometimes means just "in" (as in "inflammable"), more often turns up in English words meaning "not" (as in "invisible" -- "not visible"). After World War Two, safety officials on both sides of the Atlantic decided that folks were too likely to see "inflammable" and decide that the word meant "fireproof," so various agencies set about encouraging the revival of "flammable" as a substitute. The campaign seems to have worked, and "inflammable" has all but disappeared.

That left what to call something that was not likely to burst into flames, but here the process of linguistic renovation was easier. "Non-flammable" is a nice, comforting word, and besides, it's far easier on the tongue than its now thankfully obsolete precursor, "non-inflammable."

The Oxford English Dictionary adds this usage note: Historically, flammable and inflammable mean the same thing. However, the presence of the prefix in- has misled many people into assuming that inflammable means "not flammable" or "noncombustible." The prefix -in in inflammable is not, however, the Latin negative prefix -in, which is related to the English -un and appears in such words as indecent and inglorious. Rather, this -in is an intensive prefix derived from the Latin preposition in. This prefix also appears in the word enflame. But many people are not aware of this derivation, and for clarity's sake it is advisable to use only flammable to give warnings.

[Privateer]

[NYC_Gal 2.0]

[Globutron]

its always weird seeing apologies online

[Privateer]

[shifter2009]

[Globutron]

Haha yes, I remember this. Hitlerious.

[NYC_Gal 2.0]

[Poker]

My English is nothing to brag about but I am still quite surprised by some of the examples given in this thread. Some of these mistakes are elementary level Loose for lose?!? Jeeezz...

[Oreovictim]

I hate it when people write noone. Noone? Wasn't he the guy who sang that '60s song "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Pregnant Daughter"? It's no one.

[Jane]

When people fail to add a space before a parenthesis(just like this).

[fromtheuk]

I dislike seeing the word independent as 'independant'.