Definition of a Chemical!!!!

HappyathomeMN

Bringing up this thread again reminded me of a new policy in the labs at my school. We are no longer allowed to write H2O on containers of water. We have to write "water" because H2O might be confusing and scary to someone who spills it. -______-

That is FANTASTIC! Seriously, if someone is IN the LAB and DOESN'T know what H2O is, then they should proceed to jail immediately, do not pass go and do not collect $200. What about the red wash bottles (usually acetone) or the other solvents used to clean up? We even have MEK in a wash bottle - hate to see the "policy" on that!

darklord48

yes, perhaps a more specific word should be used, perhaps 'ADDED chemicals'....

And even this does not really make sense. Take for instance iodine, which is commonly added to table salt to reduce the risk of e.g. Goiter....this is an added chemical that is actually good for you.

The same goes for fluorine in tooth paste, which is added to protect your teeth.

And when people say they don't like the chemicals synthesized by man I don't think they know (or care?) that the molecular structure of a most of those compounds (I will give you that some may not be found in nature) are exactly the same as their "natural" counterparts (which have been synthesized by e.g. plants).......how is commercially synthesized citric acid different from the one extracted from a lemon?

I could go on.....my point is it is a gross over-simplification to blame everything bad on "the chemicals" or even "the added chemicals", and I for one would love to have a nuanced discussion rather than postulates that something is good because it's natural and another thing is bad because it's man-made or -modified.

At first I read this and was thinking that Iodine isn't a chemical, it's an element. Then I took a few seconds to look into what is added to table salt to add the iodine, and it's other salts composed of sodium iodide, sodium iodate, potassium iodide, potassium iodate, and possibly more.

Also remember not all salts are edible. Yes, I'm linking wikipedia, but I'm not a chemist, just someone who paid attention in high school chemistry class. Salts are just ionic compounds formed by combining acids and bases. MSG is another type of edible salt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_(chemistry)

HMonsterX

Gigi_licious

Me likey dis post!:blushing:

dleithaus

I bow in awe of dleithaus's powers of thread necromancy.

That said, and since I'm not the one digging anything up: while it's perfectly understandable to get frustrated at the fact that identical words are used with differently nuanced meanings, it's also a perfectly normal use of language. There's nothing really that wrong with it. Obviously the varying uses across different discourse communities are going to be considered inaccurate. It just is what it is.

Personally, I'm not fond of popular usage of, "decimate." Reducing something by 10% isn't that drastic, and yet...

Necromancy? Now that is a real word!
Actually I am just channeling the magic of chemistry.... course chemistry and the arcane knowledge associated with it seems to be a dying a slow death here in these boards at times.... so maybe it really is necromancy.

Grokette

Then there are the naturally occurring toxins that are in normal foods we may (or may not) consume. This is the short list, it does not even begin to talk about naturally occurring microorganisms that can make us very sick. Many of these you are probably familiar with... but I hope you do not think that eating beans, potatoes, mushrooms, peanuts, and leafy greens is bad for you...

Chemical examples like: solanine in potatoes, hydrazine in mushrooms, cyanide in the pits/seeds of most fruits like cherries, apricots, apples, peaches, oxalic acid in spinach, lots of other dark green veggies, and rhubarb, aflatoxin in peanuts, ergot on poorly stored grains, lectins in many beans, alkaloids vicine, isouramil and convicine in fava (broad beans)....

Actually I do personally believe that peanuts and other legumes are unhealthy for us and I no longer eat them.