Abstract
THE appearance of this volume reminds one of two opposite tendencies that are developing in the erminology of modern chemistry. On the one hand, ind more particularly in the “organic” division of he science, the chemist nowadays eschews all trivial or Opular terms for his compounds, and strives to find ippellations for them which shall be not merely names 0 remember the substances by, but titles which, at sast to the initiated, are more or less self-explanatory. This is very meet and proper, and indeed some such ystem is probably unavoidable. But the union of the tular with the descriptive, mariage de convenance as: is, often produces some very ungainly offspring. Under the writer's eye there lies a recent volume of the ournal of the Chemical Society, several pages of hich are plentifully besprinkled with such “names”as Ethylbromoketohydroxydihydropentanthrenedicarb-oxylate, and this is by no means the worst example that could be cited. Mark Twain once remarked of certain German polysyllabic achievements that they were “not words, but alphabetical processions.”Similarly one may say of productions like the one above quoted that they are not names, but descriptive sentences with the verbs left out.
Tests and Reagents, Chemical and Microscopical, known by their Authors' Names.
Compiled by Alfred I. Cohn. Pp. iii + 383. (New York: John Wiley and Sons; London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1903.) Price 3 dollars.
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SIMMONDS, C. Tests and Reagents, Chemical and Microscopical, known by their Authors' Names . Nature 68, 75 (1903). https://doi.org/10.1038/068075a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/068075a0