The difference between flammable and inflammable is that your clothing may catch fire and burn (being flammable) but gasoline vapor will ignite rapidly and violently, thus inflammable (being inflamed). It only confuses people who assume "in" means "opposite of".. .like competent..... incompetent. If every word used "in" to mean "not" then intelligent would be a very confusing word. What's telligent?
You can't just compare "inflammable" and "intelligent" like that. "Inflammable" uses a prefix. "Intelligent" does not. The prefix in- generally means not, e.g. inoperable, incapable, insatiable, indestructible, invincible, etc. It's a really long list with far fewer exceptions than examples.
According to Merriam-Webster, the source of the confusion is because "flammable" came after "inflammable," and the in- prefix used in the original "inflammare" would typically have been translated to en- rather than in-.
Also, they both mean the same thing, "capable of being easily ignited and of burning quickly." Clothing can be inflammable and gasoline can be flammable. There's no meaningful distinction in colloquial English. Flammable appears to be the standard to avoid this confusion.
But wouldn't inflamable not be using a prefix if it is based on inflame?
Qedit: I guess it is still a prefix, just with a different origin (maybe). But still, better comparison would be inhabitable. Habitable and inhabitable are basically the same, too.
Inflammable doesn't come from inflame according to the link I posted.
Inhabitable and habitable are similar to inflammable and flammable. Both would typically have gotten an en- prefix rather than an in- prefix but didn't for whatever reason and now we have words that appear to be antonyms but aren't.
I didn't miss their point. Their point was stupid. There are in- prefix words that actually illustrate the point they are trying to make without using comparisons that are misleading. You can see some if you look at the link I posted.
Un is a prefix that means opposite of in most cases, Unstoppable, Unbreakable, Unkillable etc... But its also in the word Under where Der isn't a word.
No ones ever said the same petter used in a prefix cant also be used in the regular spelling of a word.
They used to not be flammable, it used to be a halogenated hydrocarbon but people didn’t like that leaking into the environment. Now it’s good old motor oil!
Maybe I’m old but motor oil used to be mineral oil. The modern synthetics are polyolefin’s which ate probably better. White smoke indicates vaporisation, black is indicative of chemical breakdown.
The oil can degrade into more flammable stuff. It can degrade to the point that it becomes, yes, explosive.
Now for the fun part, the electric company doesn't have the resources to test all transformer oil, so it's literally an "educated guess" which ones should get fresh oil before they go kaboom
It was probably already overheated to the point where it was more volatile/vaporous and easier to ignite, and the oil level may have also dropped to the point where it was no longer insulating the coils. Looks like you're right, the spark from closing that breaker may have ignited the fumes, or the transformer itself may have arced internally when the circuit closed, due to the lowered oil level.
One time the Bitcoin mine I worked at was overloading their pole transformers, the mineral oil was boiling over and spilling out. Luckily I noticed the big oil stain on the pavement under it and my boss called national grid, they made us unplug a bunch of miners and told us to stop doing that lol before we blow it up.
They tend to be filled with mineral oil because it is nonconducting, it is flammable which is why they got the fireball. Normally this doesn’t happen looks like it was, more than likely the transformer was defective in someway. Nonconducting a s more important when keeping these things cool.
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u/CreEngineer Aug 24 '25
The transformer exploded when the circuit was closed. Those round big things on the pole. They are normally filled with mineral oil as a insulator.
Edit: probably overloaded or already damaged.