QI | What's The Opposite Of Inflammable? 

Sara's effable joke was solid gold

Overwhelmed, underwhelmed, why isn't anyone just whelmed?

"Explosif" "I beg your pardon?" "I was just reading!"

To dust can mean to remove a layer of dust or to add one.

Contronym: left. It means gone, but also means remained.

FUNERAL = REAL FUN

My favorite contranym is “strike.” On the one hand, you pound stuff with a stick, and in bowling it means you’ve knocked all the pins/skittles down. On the other, in american baseball, it means you have failed to whack the ball with your bat. So it’s kind of hit or miss.

yesn't

3:36 Acaster taught me that volunteer firemen aren't allowed to put out fires. However they are permitted to pick up litter.

From 2:20 onwards Sarah Pascoe and Jimmy Carr starts making noises that made my flatmate very confused as to what i was watching xD

I'm in America so I only watch this show through these clips. When Stephen suddenly went missing as the host I was a little worried but I have to say Sandi made the transition seamless! Very funny and intelligent, she's a wonderful successor overall!

Do you think Lemony Snicket knows about the 'a volunteer fireman' / 'I never run to a flame' thing? It sounds like something he'd know.

3:05 "The opposite of a gram" His delivery is just gold.

Disappointed - you never tell anyone "I am very appointed in you."

Inflammable and flammable used to have slightly different meanings, but being so similar they both just merged into one. Inflammable comes from the same root as inflame(to catch light or become angered easily). Flammable comes from flame and just means it'll burn. Effectively the difference was that all things that were inflammable were flammable(if it catches light easily then of course it burns), but some things that are flammable might not be inflammable(coal is a good example, it burns well but needs to be around 300°C to ignite which is hard to get accidentally). Obviously whole thing is moot with the words converging, but it's cool etymology.

I love Ms. Toksvig. They honestly couldn’t have gotten a better replacement for Stephen Fry than her. Superb.

Alan said “dis dane!” And pointed to Sandi, who is Danish. Brilliant

Shelled. Does it mean it has a shell? Or that it has been shelled, and therefor has no shell? I have sent several strongly worded letters to pistachio manufacturers over this...

How is "customer" an antigram? "Customer" and "store scum" are synonymous, surely?

We have a similar situation in Dutch with flammable/inflammable. We use 'ontvlambaar', which literally seems to mean something can't 'catch flames' but it really means that something can catch on fire. This happens to many words in Dutch, like waking up and breakfast which are 'ontwaken' and 'ontbijten'. If you start to think about these words it means to 'unwake' and 'unbite' yet they mean 'to wake' and 'to bite'. It's all a bit confusing when you start digging into language, but that's what makes it beautiful. I'm quite happy there's etymologists working hard for us to be able to make sense of all of it. The reasons behind why these words work the way they do is a bit too much for me to explain in a short youtube comment, but it's worth a read if you're Dutch :)

Sanction - can mean to punish, and also to permit

"To be fair Jimmy, I had to have it pointed out to me"

Inflammable means flammable!? What a country!

People are always disgruntled, never gruntled

Alan is so spot on with his retail remark. I absolutely stand behind that :D

I had to have it pointed out to me XD

Jimmy's mind was blown wide open. Expect more wordplay material in his next routine.

Of course people don't say effable, it literally means "able to be described in words" so wouldn't you JUST SAY THE WORDS TO DESCRIBE THE THING

In German we use "umfahren" both for "to run over" and "to drive around", but it only looks the same in a few grammatical cases

QI lives up to their name... always finding really interesting and quirky stuff to chat about.

"To be fair Jimmy, I had to have it pointed out to me" - Next level layering!

Disgusting Once told granny her food was "gusting" thinking I was being clever... she misheard...

Fun facts about language are my absolute favorite!

Ohh, I do love the English language sometimes.

I love these clips because there are more snippets of information to make me look cool and clever in less than 5 minutes than I can find in a whole evening of the rest of RU-vid.

How I Met Your Mother did a great gag in the first season where Ted was trying to break up with a girl on her birthday and he knew dragging it out would not be virtuous, so his reasoning was that he just knew she wasn't "the one" but the answer as to why was ineffable. "I'm not effable?" she replied. It was brilliant.

"I think we need marijuana for this" I've definitely had convos like this

I suppose everyone in 1701 was just very cessant about using the word "cessant".

One of the funniest short segments I've seen

So funny! Brilliant stuff, thank you, QI

Cleave can mean to join together or splice apart.

QI is such an incredible show. Intelligent insights and hilarious people. What's not to love!

That music at the end is nice.

My favorite one of these EVER!!

The new presenter is really growing on me, I love the sass!

1:08 This guy was living in 2019 while we were all living in 2017

There are so few channel that are both informative and entertaining. This is one of the few.

This is a great excerpt!!

I thought an antigram was used for weighing helium balloons.

We get this show here in Australia and I love it. I love the host too, I think she is absolutely hilarious and wonderful.

Now this one is worth watching!

Love this show, can’t believe I’ve never heard of it before

1:08 yesn't

Customers = store scum... I love it! (yes, I do work in retail lol)

this was a particularly good one.

Probably the best QI clip ever!

"There's a few people out there working retail" CLAP CLAP CLAP! XD

Yesn't?

They are brilliant; I hope I may be able to remember some of those!

This was a really good one

Still remember, at age 8, some kids parent correcting me that inflammable didnt mean it cant catch on fire. I was gutted.

"inflammable means flammable? what a country!" - Dr. Nick Riviera

This video left me very gruntled!

This clip was so interesting!!!

A word which has unfortunately become a contronym: Literally

unlockable - able to be unlocked unlockable - not able to be locked

I'm an american, I think I missed my exit, I've watched about five clips from the show, I don't even know what it is. It's great. Love it. Don't know I got here.

This was soo good

one plus twelve = two plus eleven

Jimmy Carr should get a klaxon every time he laughs.

This went from interesting to very interesting to hilarious. And all within four minitues!

This was great fun!

Plenty of ruthless acts to go around but a lot less ruth ones.

“Just reading”

Priceless! Nobody says something is priceful.

I'm feeling very gruntled after watching this.

So, would the word "sanction" be a contronym?

“I’m not superstitious, but I am a little stitious.” -Michael Scott

This is very good.

I'm so gruntled with this! 😜

did anyone else notice when Adam said "Antonym" Alan leant in and squinted at Adam like he had an ant on him. Unbelievable stuff, i'm surprised i didn't miss it.

Cleave - means to cut apart or stick together.

Thanks gnilttbs... that helps answer my long term thoughts! Though I must say I don't hear people using "ruthful" either!

That was super interesting

“Your impression of doing drugs shows you’ve never done drugs” is such a boring joke at this point

F-able!!! Hahaha

This is the best.

I was so gruntled after watching this

In French, we have the word "hôte", which means the person welcoming to her house, and the person welcomed to this house. It's just... a lot.

Best anagram ever: Virginia Bottomley = I'm an evil tory bigot.

"Well Michael, I underestimated you." "Well, maybe next time you will estimate me."

Speaking of orphaned negatives: English uses the Germanic word "harm" and has the adjectives "harmless" and "harmful". In German and Norwegian "harmlos/harmløs" are orphaned negatives. Instead of "harmful" they say "schädlich/skadelig" which both come from the Germanic word "skapon". The nouns are "Schaden/skade". The word "Harm" was used in German but it meant more of a mental damage like a depression or a trauma. It fell out of favour and wasn't used outside of poetry for at least two centuries.

Aster Traught Whelmed

Another word for contranym is autoantonym

This is extremely interesting

a modern contronym: "literally" which is also used to mean "figuratively"

Whereas the opposite of nonplussed is most definitely not plussed.

How about ininflammable? It's the antonym in French of inflammable and one of my favourite absurdities of language. I suppose that you don't use it in English, I can't blame you!😉

Why did I ever stop watching this show?!

" Orphan Negatives". I like that.