English lesson

[Darwin]

Can any one tell the difference between 'Completed' and 'Finished'?
No dictionary has ever been able to define the difference between
'Complete' and 'Finished.' However, in a linguistic conference,
held in London England, Thulaseedharan B an Indian British was the
clever winner. His final challenge was this. His response was:
When you marry the right woman, you are 'Complete.' If you marry the
wrong woman, you are 'Finished.' And, when the right woman catches
you with the wrong woman, you are 'Completely Finished.' His answer
received a five minute standing ovation.

[rjm]

As it should have!

[herky]

Originally Posted by Darwin

Can any one tell the difference between 'Completed' and 'Finished'?
No dictionary has ever been able to define the difference between
'Complete' and 'Finished.' However, in a linguistic conference,
held in London England, Thulaseedharan B an Indian British was the
clever winner. His final challenge was this. His response was:
When you marry the right woman, you are 'Complete.' If you marry the
wrong woman, you are 'Finished.' And, when the right woman catches
you with the wrong woman, you are 'Completely Finished.' His answer
received a five minute standing ovation.

the one that bugs me is the prefix IN .example human-inhuman.sane-insane. so they are opposites.
why then is flammable not opposite of inflammable.???

[Gil]

Darwin,

This is a repeat! But well worth repeating...,

-Gil

[looker]

For the information of the masses and in the true pedantic mode of a pedant

Inflammable | Define Inflammable at Dictionary.com

Inflammable and flammable both mean “combustible.” Inflammable is the older by about 200 years. Flammable now has certain technical uses, particularly as a warning on vehicles carrying combustible materials, because of a belief that some might interpret the intensive prefix in- of inflammable as a negative prefix and thus think the word means “noncombustible.” Inflammable is the word more usually used in nontechnical and figurative contexts: The speaker ignited the inflammable emotions of the crowd.

[herky]

Originally Posted by looker

For the information of the masses and in the true pedantic mode of a pedant

Inflammable | Define Inflammable at Dictionary.com

Inflammable and flammable both mean “combustible.” Inflammable is the older by about 200 years. Flammable now has certain technical uses, particularly as a warning on vehicles carrying combustible materials, because of a belief that some might interpret the intensive prefix in- of inflammable as a negative prefix and thus think the word means “noncombustible.” Inflammable is the word more usually used in nontechnical and figurative contexts: The speaker ignited the inflammable emotions of the crowd.

makes perfect sense

[gotham]

Looker - ?
And you wonder why non English speakers have trouble with English ! We can't deal with it ourselves.

[Karl]

So what about Continent and Incontinent?

[herky]

Originally Posted by gotham

Looker - ?
And you wonder why non English speakers have trouble with English ! We can't deal with it ourselves.

hence my sarcastic smiles

[herky]

Originally Posted by Karl

So what about Continent and Incontinent?

continent and incontinent have no relevance to each other so no issues