Don't Get Hot Over Flammable

Yesterday I saw a tractor-trailer crossing the Bay Bridge in the same direction I was traveling.  I noticed the large truck for two reasons.  It was a tanker truck and I thought such vehicles where prohibited from crossing the Bridge.  I also noticed the warning sign on the side of the truck which indicated that the materials it was carrying were “flammable” and “inflammable.”  My immediate reaction was that the materials inside the gigantic stainless steel “thermos” bottle were either inert, because they were simultaneously flammable and inflammable or, the more likely and concerning possibility was that the materials were combustible and possibly explosive.  This of course presented two problems.  First the truck was carrying materials that when involved in an automobile accident on the bridge had the potential of bringing down the bridge and all of us hapless commuters into the freezing waters of the Bay three hundred feet below.  Second, and related to the first, the driver of this truck was at best illiterate and at worst stupid.  While I do not expect that the driver of an eighteen-wheeler to be fully conversant in chemistry, he should know whether or not the contents of his payload is prone to explosion.  Without such knowledge such a driver might be slightly less careful than one who had such knowledge - if for no other reason than self-preservation.

In the driver's defense, inerudites managed to create the ultimate confusion by literally switching the meaning of “flammable” and “inflammable.”  This change is relatively recent.  Inflammable means combustible.  However, because fools and the benighted can’t seem to get by the “in” in the word they have slowly and with deliberateness that only true ignorance can muster, managed to convince the non-reading, non-thinking world that “flammable” means combustible and inflammable means non-combustible.  Fortunately, as pointed out by the great master of the English language E. B. White, the world is not run by illiterates and truck drivers.

In this particular case, apparently to cover all his basis, the driver of this truck created even more confusion.  By labeling his cargo as both flammable and inflammable there is now way to measure the possible danger of its contents.  In fact, no sign would have been more informative.  Here ignorance of the meaning of the word was only one of his problems.  Logic must too have been beyond his capabilities.  One can only hope his driving skills are even the slightest improvement over his command of the English Language and that the operation of this 40,000 pound IUD requires little or no logical reasoning.