# How to tell them apart (a public service) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 5, 2004, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-them-apart-a-public-service/258497 "2004-08-05T19:16:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-them-apart-a-public-service/258497/341 "2005-10-29T16:38:35Z")
**JThunder** , I learned this one originally in French, In which you can use **p** remier (first) and **d** ernier (last). ---
**Author:** ![sleeepy2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@sleeepy2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleeepy2)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-them-apart-a-public-service/258497/342 "2005-10-29T16:47:12Z")
> [@OtakuLoki](#): > > The original and, according to the latin-crack smoking grammarians at least, proper word is **inflammable**. > > **Flammable** is an allegedly improper word that was used on traffic safety signs becuase it’s not as confusing as **inflammable**. Nowadays, at least, it’s just as accepted, but I know in my days in elementary school it was much railed against by my teachers. [Dr. Nick Riviera, post explosion] “Flammable and inflammable mean the same thing? What a language!”[/Dr. Nick Riviera, post explosion] ---
**Author:** ![Blank\_Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dc4da7/32.png) [@Blank\_Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blank_Frank)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-them-apart-a-public-service/258497/343 "2005-10-29T21:30:31Z")
> [@sleeepy2](#): > > [Dr. Nick Riviera, post explosion] “Flammable and inflammable mean the same thing? What a language!”[/Dr. Nick Riviera, post explosion] A simple way to remember things: If “flammable” appears without “non” in front of it, don’t smoke near it. ---
**Author:** ![Blank\_Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dc4da7/32.png) [@Blank\_Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blank_Frank)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-them-apart-a-public-service/258497/344 "2005-10-29T21:35:09Z")
:smack: I mean if flammable appears in any form without a non… ---
**Author:** ![Hometownboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5e9695/32.png) [@Hometownboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hometownboy)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2005, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-them-apart-a-public-service/258497/345 "2005-10-30T04:59:16Z")
> [@Nightwatch Trailer](#): > > **Dan O’Brian** - American athlete (pentathlon) > **Tim O’Brian** - writer (_The Things They Carried_) > **Pat O’Brian’s** - a famous bar in New Orleans Reaching back to the thriird page of the thread for this one, but we don’t want to forget [Tim O’Brien](http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:1kqag44btv3z~T1), justly renowned as one of the leading lights in modern bluegrass music, both on his own and has a founder of both Hot Rize and Red Knuckles & the Trailblazers. ---
**Author:** ![Hometownboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5e9695/32.png) [@Hometownboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hometownboy)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2005, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-them-apart-a-public-service/258497/346 "2005-10-30T05:00:24Z")
That would be **third** , dammit! ---
**Author:** ![Hometownboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5e9695/32.png) [@Hometownboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hometownboy)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2005, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-them-apart-a-public-service/258497/347 "2005-10-30T05:57:38Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > \*\*Paraguay \*\*- small South American country that lost a third of it’s male population in a war against Uruguay in the 1920s. > \*\*Uruguay \*\*- small South American country that lost a third of it’s male population in a war against Paraguay in the 1920s. > (these were 1920’s style death 'guays) ::winces at “death 'guays” pun:: Still, I have to pick some nits. I believe you’re referring to the [Gran Chaco War (sometimes just the Chaco War)](http://worldatwar.net/chandelle/v1/v1n3/chaco.html) as presented in fascinating detail at the linked site. That war was 1932-35, and the casualties were indeed tremendous as outlined on a morbidly fascinating site:[Mid-Range Wars and Atrocities of the Twentieth Century](http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat4.htm). Scroll down to the Chaco War at number 11. However, that’s not a patch on Paraguay’s Nineteenth Century what-WERE-they-thinking misaventure known as [The War of the Triple Alliance](http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/tango/triple1864.htm), 1864-1870. That’s as in a triple alliance against Paraguay, in which Paraguayan dictator Francisco Solano López managed to start a war against the two strongest South American powers, Argentina and Brazil plus - as an added attraction - Uruguay, which, along with Argentina, sits astride Paraguay’s only access to the sea, the Rio Uruguay which empties into the Rio de la Plata. By the time this debacle was over, “The war left Paraguay utterly prostrate; its prewar population of approximately 525,000 was reduced to about 221,000 in 1871, of which only about 28,000 were men.” So few men of marrying age were left that it is popularly held (though I couldn’t find a scholarly cite for it) that polygamy was legalized for a short time to restore the population. That’s a serious defeat. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2005, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-them-apart-a-public-service/258497/348 "2005-10-30T06:25:44Z")
Yet oddly Francisco Solano López is a national hero. Go figure. ---
**Author:** ![Pixiesnix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/898d66/32.png) [@Pixiesnix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixiesnix)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2005, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-them-apart-a-public-service/258497/349 "2005-10-30T08:34:57Z")
**Miles O’Brien** - 21st-century television journalist. Real. **Miles O’Brien** - 24th-century chief engineer for Deep Space Nine. Fictional. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2005, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-them-apart-a-public-service/258497/350 "2005-10-30T08:44:02Z")
> [@Blank Frank](#): > > You know, I knew I was missing some Ians. > No offense meant to them in forgetting to list them. Of course, in the pantheon of British Rock Ians, none holds a higher place than Ian Kilminster, better known to Motorhead fans as Lemmy. ---
**Author:** ![Pixiesnix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/898d66/32.png) [@Pixiesnix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixiesnix)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2005, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-them-apart-a-public-service/258497/351 "2005-10-30T08:48:32Z")
I forgot to add– **Miles O’Brien** - Has been blown about by Katrina and Rita. **Miles O’Brien** - Has probably never been blown by Keiko, given what we’ve seen of their marriage. ---
**Author:** ![Blank\_Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dc4da7/32.png) [@Blank\_Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blank_Frank)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-them-apart-a-public-service/258497/352 "2005-10-31T01:57:52Z")
> [@Case Sensitive](#): > > Of course, in the pantheon of British Rock Ians, none holds a higher place than Ian Kilminster, better known to Motorhead fans as Lemmy. At the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s Ian Curtis, lead singer of Joy Division. I’ve never heard them, but I hear they’re bleak, sad, depressing, late-'70s gothic rock. By eerie coincidence, he seems to have died by suicide. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-them-apart-a-public-service/258497/353 "2005-10-31T03:57:00Z")
The Boys On the Bus: Political journalists. The Boys in the Band: Gay. The Boys of Summer: Baseball players. (Also an unrelated song by Don Henley.) The Boys from Brazil: Hitler clones. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-tell-them-apart-a-public-service/258497.md?page=17)