Drive up ATM's OT, OOP (was Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Languages)

[Laura C. Minnick]

At 05:41 AM 5/22/02 -0500, you wrote:
>To be couth is to possess a high degree of sophistication or be refined,
>obviously, so fair a lady as yourself is by definition "couth."

Aw... thank you, Bear! (he obviously can't see my robe and slippers...
having a bad asthma morning and I don't know why)

>As for the, for the "flammable" "inflammable" business, the "in" is an
>intensive prefix in Latin.  Both mean to set afire, but inflame is a
>stronger expression of the word which is why it is commonly used when
>discussing human passions.  In English usage for clarity when discussing the
>burn characteristics of an item it is best to use the word flammable, as
>inflammable may be misunderstood to mean nonflammable.

I am aware of this (once was a grad grunt in English), however, I was
speaking of general usage. It would appear that those who _should_ know,
such as journalists and editors, either don't know, or don't care. I think
it has something to do the with lowest common denominator. :-/

>You are confusing the adverb "con" with the prefix "con-."  The adverb means
>opposed while the prefix means come together.

Actually, I was not confusing it at all- I was making a reference to the
old joke about-

"You know the difference between 'pro-' and 'con-', right?"
"Yeah..."
"Well, if 'progress' means 'moving forward' or 'becoming better', then what
does that say about 'congress'?"

I first heard it during one of the deadlocks, three, four years ago...

'Lainie
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Sometimes Life makes drastic changes without our permission...