Will that burn?

I guess I’ve always been intrigued by words. Without question I’d have to attribute this to my mother who on many occasions would read stories to me and my brother before bed. I know this had a great deal with my love of reading and it always amazed me then how fast she could read a book. I attribute this to the time I checked out “Robinson Crusoe” from the school library. It took me two weeks to read that book, but my mother read it in a single evening. She was an avid reader and when she went blind losing that ability pained her more than anything.
 
It was on a trip from my grandmother’s house that we ended up behind a fuel truck. On the back of the tank with all the placards and warning signs was the word inflammable in bright red letters.
 
“What does that word mean?” I asked pointed past my mother toward the letters.
 
“It means it will catch fire. That’s a gasoline truck. It’s hauling gasoline.”
 
“So why did they spell it that way?” I asked, not entirely sure I’d hear an answer I’d find satisfactory.
 
“That’s just the way it’s spelled.”
 
“Well it just seems to me that something that will catch fire should be called flammable instead of inflammable. Because doesn’t the prefix “in” mean not?”
 
My dad agreed with me, but my mom took the high road. “Why don’t you look it up when we get home, then you can tell us what you find out.”
 
Great I thought. I ask a simple question to question what I’d learned in school and end up doing homework. Needless to say I opened our dictionary soon after arriving home and looked up my questioned word. To my horror I discovered the use of the word had been correct. That troubled me then, but now the word flammable is the preferred word for such warnings. Due to the fact that the prefix “in” can be confusing to some people and lead them to believe the item is not flammable or nonflammable.

Still if you look up both words, flammable and inflammable, you’ll find they have the same definition.