Outsider’s Perspective

“Inoften”

Adverbs, Outsider's Perspective

I caught myself saying this yesterday.

Problem:
“Inoften” is a made-up adverb.

Explanation:
I was tired yesterday when, seemingly out of nowhere, I said “inoften” instead of “infrequently” or something else.

This made-up adverb puzzled me because I did not recognize it, so I asked my wife. She said that she had never heard of it.

The word then amused me because it made sense. In other words, if a non-native English speaker said this, you probably would understand what he or she meant.

I looked up “inoften” in an online dictionary and got back “Did you mean unoften?” instead of a definition.

It turns out that “unoften” is in at least one dictionary as an obsolete adverb that mean not often.

A Google search for “inoften” returned about 671 matches — relatively rare for the World-Wide Web today. In contrast, Google found the obsolete adverb “unoften” about 32,600 matches — not so rare.

Solution:
“Not often”

“He don’t.”

Common English Blunders, Contractions, Outsider's Perspective

Although this is illustrative of bad grammar, it is somewhat logical.

Problem:
The contraction “don’t” is not a contraction of “does not”.

Explanation:
Forget about the source of contractions while you consider these plural forms:

  • We won’t. We don’t.
  • You won’t. You don’t.
  • They won’t. They don’t.

Now, consider these singular forms:

  • I won’t. I don’t.
  • You won’t. You don’t.
  • He won’t. He doesn’t.

In other words, only the third-person, singular contraction for not doing something uses “doesn’t” instead of “don’t”.

The reason for this is that the third-person, singular, non-contracted form for not doing something is “does not”, whereas all of the other non-contracted forms are “do not”.

From an outsider’s perspective, though, “He don’t.” is somewhat logical, especially when going by sound alone and when failing to remember that “don’t” is a contraction of “do” and “not”.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following phrases (with the quotation marks) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

  • “He doesn’t” — 5,770,000 matches
  • “He don’t” — 5,230,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the phrase correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 1.10:1, which is a bit pathetic.

Solution:
“He doesn’t.”

“Flammable” vs. “Inflammable” vs. “Nonflammable”

Adjectives, Common English Blunders, Outsider's Perspective

I sometimes hear “inflammable” when people mean “nonflammable”.

Problem:
The adjective “inflammable” is synonymous with the adjective “flammable”, not the adjective “nonflammable”.

Explanation:
There is a funny scene in an episode of “The Simpsons” in which Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, the cartoon character whose first language is NOT English, says, “Flammable. Inflammable. I don’t understand this language.”

The primary definition of the adjective “flammable” is combustible.

The primary definition of the adjective “inflammable” is combustible.

The primary definition of the adjective “nonflammable” is not combustible.

In other words, “inflammable” is synonymous with “flammable”. The typical distinction in usage of these two adjectives is that “flammable” is usually applied to physical things (e.g., “flammable gas tank”) whereas “inflammable” is usually applied figuratively (e.g., “inflammable feelings of the dissatisfied constituents”).

The misuse of “inflammable” as a synonym for “nonflammable” apparently comes from the mistaken belief that the prefix “in” in “inflammable” means not. The correct meaning of the prefix “in” in “inflammable” is in.

A simple way to remember that “inflammable” means combustible instead of not combustible is to remember the verb from which “inflammable” is constructed: “inflame”.

Solution:
Use “nonflammable” when you’re talking about something that is not combustible. Use “flammable” or “inflammable” when you’re talking about something that is combustible. For more refined usage, use “flammable” for literal things (such as cars or boats) and “inflammable” for figurative things (such as emotions).