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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 9th, 2023

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  • They aren’t dumb, peoples’ usage is just poorly informed and incorrect.

    Famous/infamous are not synonyms, so you shouldn’t be using them interchangeably. Infamous specifically means “Famous for the wrong [read negative] reasons”. Like a serial killer. Or somebody who is famous for knocking over and breaking a priceless work of art.

    If something is flammable, it can be set on fire. Like wood, or paper. If something is inflammable, that’s still true, but it has the additional property of being able to spontaneously combust, without being actively set alight. Like oils, or unstable chemicals, or some explosive material.

    These are levels of nuance which are actually really useful, if handled correctly. The fundamental rule appears to be that in an “in…” word, the prefix gives specific detail about how the object holds the properties of the suffix.
















  • Stop holding your nose and blowing, to clear your ears. You can burst your eardrum this way. I have a perforated eardrum, myself (though not from this), and getting a subsequent inner ear infection in that ear is the most painful thing I have ever experienced. Worse than the burst appendix or broken ribs.

    Instead, try holding your nose and closing your mouth and swallowing a few times. With a big gulp of water might help. Should eventually give you enough pressure to clear the blockage, without risking your health.