NOMENCLATURE by Austin M . Patterson

That Superfluous " i " ( o r Is I t? )

In the Sept. 6 C&EN, page 3548, there was a brief mention of the varia­tion in spelling of such words as arsenious or arsenous, arseniate o r arse­nate, antimonious or antimonous, seleni-ous or selenous. The Lavoisier "Trai té" (1787) shows the word "arseniate/ ' which was promptly adopted i n Eng­lish, and the Oxford English Dictionary cites "antimoniated" as of 1729. "Ar­senate" has been traced back to 1800, "antimonate" to 1853, "arsenious" to 1818, "arsenous" to 1800, "antimonious" to 1833, "antimonous" to 1868, "sele-niate" to 1867, "selenate" to 1818, "selenious" to 1834, "tellurate , , t o 1826, "tellurous" to 1842. "Tellurious" was used by Scoffern in 1854 b u t seems no longer current. Chemical Abstracts prefers "arsenious" and "selenious/* but "antimonous," "antimonate/* and "arse­nate." W e suppose that the i comes from the ending -ium of the element (arsenium, antimonium, selenium). We do not know how this question of spelling is to be settled, as we do not know which forms chemists prefer. An

221 North King St., Xenia, O h i o

argument for "arsenious," adduced by one correspondent, is that it is one of three words in the English language in which the five vowels occur in their alphabetic order, the others being "ab ­stemious" and "facetious.** Are there any more?

CI3CSCI

The most common n a m e for C13CSC1 is "perchloromethyl mercaptan." I t is open to the objection that the class term "mercaptan" hajs been discarded b y the International Union in favor of "thiol." T h e British, we believe, use "thiocarbonyl tetrachloride," which has much to recommend it. The CA name, "trichloromethanesulfenyl chloride," though not too familiar, is probably best for indexing purposes, as i t permits the compound to be lined u p with other derivatives of methanesulfenic acid, CH3SOH. These have been variously named in the past.

Soturnium vs. Protactinium

Leonard I. Katzin of the Argonne National Laboratory has proposed the name soturnium to replace "protac­t inium" for element 9 1 . H e regards the latter name as a misnomer, since about

half of the dozen isotopes of 91 do not decay to any isotope of actinium. Kat­zin states tha t "wart ime informal dis­cussions considered seriously the use of the n a m e 'saturnium' for t he element, to obviate the historical difficulties and to use a name which would be in fine with those for the next few elements (uranium, neptunium, plutonium)." It will b e noted that the order of the four elements 9 1 , 92, 93, and 94 is the same as the outward-proceeding order of the planets Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Seems like a good sugges­tion, especially as in addition "pro­tactinium" is rather long and has been spelled in two ways. As a symbol either Sa or St would be available. "Saturn" is of course an old name for lead, b u t it is not a part of modern chemical terminology.

Emotion f o r Radon?

Katzin has also proposed that "radon" be replaced by "emanation" or "ema-non," symbol E m , for element 86. He states tha t he and his associates faced this problem while working on the syn­thetic ( 4 n - l ) radioactive series, and that t he proposed name h a d already been used to some extent as a generic term for isotopes of 86. These terms do not seem to have as strong a case as "sa tumium" (for 9 1 ) . "Emanation" is not suitable, because it is a word of general meaning; also, it does not have the characteristic -on ending. "Ema-non" is better, bu t is the change worth while? "Radon" is well established, is short, and does not have so specific an implication as does "protactinium" as a name for 91 ("rad" can suggest radi­ation as well as r ad ium) .

Good Nomenclature in Japan

Copies have been received of a 250-page Japanese book, the English title of which is "Nomenclature of Chemical Compounds." It is published by the Standing Commit tee on Nomenclature, Pharmaceutical Institute, Medical Fac­ulty, University of Tokyo, Hongo, Tokyo, and the price is $1.35 (paper covers) . The book is a Japanese trans­lation, arranged by Dorothy Mizo-guchi, of some of the principal nomen­clature pamphlets distributed by the Chemical Abstracts office. These in­clude the organic Definitive Report of 1930, the inorganic Rules of 1940, re­ports on carbohydrates, amino acids, steroids, organo-phosphorus and -silicon compounds and other topics, and some miscellaneous information, e.g., on radical names. ACS Committee on Nomenclature, Spelling, and Pronun­ciation made the material available.

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