[Ads-l] dihydrogen monoxide

Benjamin Barrett mail.barretts at GMAIL.COM
Sun Mar 6 04:04:05 UTC 2016


I learned in chemistry that water is never referred to by its chemical name, dihydrogen monoxide, but for some time now, people have been making spoof warnings of the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide and posting them on social media. Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dihydrogen_monoxide <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dihydrogen_monoxide>) has this as a word and Wikipedia has it as a hoax (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_hoax), dating it to 1983, which is before I took chemistry. The Oxford Dictionary site does not have this word.

Benjamin Barrett
Formerly of Seattle, WA
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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