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This is a peeve thread, and my peeve is that I don't like to see asterisks used in place of italics or quotation marks. It's just my preference.
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I use the asterisks rather than capitalize the word or phrase. My intent is to emphasize. But I learned to type back before electric typewriters were common, and certainly before italics were available. Underlining always was, but I don't think we were taught to underline for emphasis. I think we learned to use all caps.
Now that I've done some Googling, I see that italics are the preferred way to emphasize. I'll have to think about that. Thanks for sharing the peeve. I had no idea it was annoying.
I actually have a friend who says "youse" and "sangwich" and I seen" for "I saw".
I try to correct him, while trying not to be annoying, but he has been speaking this way for over fifty years....
I belong to a running forum on which people often complain about injuries which "flair up" (flare up) or take too long to "heel" (heal).
Since my background is English I also find the American usage of "insure" meaning "ensure", as in "to ensure success" a bit jarring, but that is just a matter of usage! A really ridiculous English usage is the word used to describe things which may catch fire: in American English you would say "flammable" which makes perfect sense, but in English we say "inflammable" which should mean the opposite since the prefix "in" indicates the negative.
Inflammable is grammatically correct (as is "flammable"), although it's falling out of favor due to the confusion it causes. This explains it better that I can:
There is no difference in meaning between flammable and inflammable. Both describe things that are capable of burning or easy to ignite, but in all modern varieties of English, flammable is preferred.
Inflammable, derived from the verb inflame, is the original word. But because the first syllable is easily misinterpreted as the common negative prefix in- (as in, for example, inescapable, invulnerable, inorganic), the word has always caused confusion. Because this confusion can have dangerous real-world consequences, the shift from inflammable to flammable is welcome.
Inflammable is grammatically correct (as is "flammable"), although it's falling out of favor due to the confusion it causes. This explains it better that I can:
There is no difference in meaning between flammable and inflammable. Both describe things that are capable of burning or easy to ignite, but in all modern varieties of English, flammable is preferred.
Inflammable, derived from the verb inflame, is the original word. But because the first syllable is easily misinterpreted as the common negative prefix in- (as in, for example, inescapable, invulnerable, inorganic), the word has always caused confusion. Because this confusion can have dangerous real-world consequences, the shift from inflammable to flammable is welcome.
Thanks, but should it not be "enflammable" and "enflame"? English is full of exceptions to the rule!
Usually, as in "indestructible" or "ineffective" the prefix "in" means not.
Last edited by Geezerrunner; 08-06-2014 at 08:25 AM..
Reason: Additional comment.
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