To have misunderstood the meaning of this word my whole life?

[Lemonsaretheonlyfruit]

Salubrious.

I always thought it meant luxurious. Turns out it means healthy or health giving. (My 10 year old DS asked me this morning so I looked it up just to double check I was giving him the correct definition!)

Who knew? (Probably everyone apart from me). Any more of these to share?

Gotten didn't fall out of use in the UK.

It fell out of use in some areas of the UK.

/pedantmodeoff

How do you pronounce BANAL please I have always rhymed it with canal🙁

Ba’narrl

@Standrews It does rhyme with canal for many. It does for me.

If you are Scottish (as your username suggests you might be), ignore people putting in an 'r', it only works in non-rhotic accents.

Canal - both As short.
Banal - first A short, second A long.
Banality - both As short.

I no longer know how I say either the word banal or or canal.

I also am starting to doubt if any word in the world actually rhymes.

Fitful sleep. I always thought it meant a good kip. Not so.

[quote MillicentMartha]@Mamanyt, with ‘ideal’ were they Bristolian? The accent adds an I to words ending in a vowel. Bristol itself means ‘place of the bridge’ originally ‘Bridge Stowe.’

Monical, Amandal, ideal, Asdal etc.[/quote]
It's called the 'terminal L'

This is quite interesting. It was accurate for me at least

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/15/upshot/british-irish-dialect-quiz.html

Yes, and for me! I think the word ‘daps’ locates me fairly well.

I don't know if it's just me but I don't think "kindly" always sounds very kindly?

For example if someone says "kindly sign and return the following by x date" I see that as a bit of a command. I would write "please could you sign and return..."

In the real world, people know the difference between accents that accentuate the r and those that don't. I didn't even know the term "rhotic and non-rhotic" before MN - but some MNers are obsessed with it.

I don't have a "rhotic" accent but have lived in places where people do. I have never understood why it's such a big thing on MN.

I also can't think of a non-rhotic non-UK and non-US anglophone accent that UK people take the mick out of. South African? Is that really the butt of jokes? I've never heard it.

Flammable and Inflammable do not mean the same. Flammable is something that will catch fire when exposed to a flame. Inflammable is something that will combust without any exposure to a flame.

@MillicentMartha
I had to look up 'daps'
I think it was 'fat pigs' as a term for woodlice that got me.
@puffinkoala
You're right, kindly doesnt sound very kindly when used like that.

@ClareBlue

Flammable and Inflammable do not mean the same. Flammable is something that will catch fire when exposed to a flame. Inflammable is something that will combust without any exposure to a flame.

From a health and safety perspective in the UK “inflammable” is never used, because of the risk of it appearing to mean non-flammable.

Substances can be classified as flammable, highly flammable and extremely flammable. They are usually gases or liquids, but may be solids e.g. fats and some foams.

Wood, cardboard etc. are not usually classified as flammable, but are referred to as combustible.

@ClareBlue, that’s excellent. I didn’t realise that, I always thought they meant the same too.

@WiseUpJanetWeiss - thank you. I will be prepared for my next cscs test!

@Standrews, don’t worry. If you’re actually from StA, then it definitely does rhyme. Basically it rhymes with a rhotic accent but not in a non-rhotic accent. I’m from SE but both parents are Irish and I went to uni in Scotland so it does rhyme for me. But for others in the SE it will not rhyme.

I was taught that 'flammable' is not actually a word. But almost everyone thinks it is, and it has therefore come to be included in most dictionaries. Strictly speaking, something that can burn is 'inflammable'. If it can't burn, it is 'non-inflammable'. Unfortunately there is total confusion about this!

Flammable is a word. It’s just that it also means the same as inflammable.

If flammable wasn’t a word, then non-flammable couldn’t exist.

@MadameFireweed

I was taught that 'flammable' is not actually a word. But almost everyone thinks it is, and it has therefore come to be included in most dictionaries. Strictly speaking, something that can burn is 'inflammable'. If it can't burn, it is 'non-inflammable'. Unfortunately there is total confusion about this!

What do you think prevents something from being a word?

If it exists and it's used, it's a word. Dictionaries aren't the authority on English. There's no board that regulates it. "Brexit" wasn't in existence As soon as it started being used it was a word.

Language is "controlled" and developed by usage. Dictionaries simply reflect the level of that usage (online ones sooner than paper ones). Mind you this doesn't stop the repeated claims on MN about what's correct and proper* for pronunciation and so on.

*the correct way being, of cause, how the person making that claim says it!! Natch.

The way I understand it is that "flammable" was coined to avoid the confusion caused by "inflammable". It's definitely a word though!

@ThePinkGuitar

I was a teenage before I realised that ‘several’ didn’t mean seven of something 😳

This has made me realise I use the word couple to mean more than two. eg. There were a couple of strawberries ripening in the garden today. Meaning a vague few. DH uses the same meaning as well when he says he's had a couple of pints !

@AHFemaleim informal English a couple also means "an indefinite small number"

Oops I messed that up....

@AHFemale In informal English a couple also means "an indefinite small number"