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Chemical Words List
An anonymous reader writes "Mark Nandor, a teacher of mathematics at The Wellington School, has recently posted a new chemical words page. For those who haven't seen this before, it is a list of English words that can be spelled using chemical symbols."
there's still no cure for cancer.
For the longest time, I've had a private gripe that I just can't seem to shake off. Many years ago, I took a chemistry class at Cornell during the summer that gave me my first taste of the collegiate experience. Some of the things I've learned I could do without (for example: Cornell has the hightest suicide rate among ivy leagues? I still think I was being toyed with). But one of the most enduring experiences that has stayed with me were some of the lab stuff we did when we got to the organic chemistry part of the class. It was pretty mind-blowing for me (just a high schooler back then) to open up a little vial of liquid or wet gauze and have the sweet pungent smell of fresh fruit waif out at me. Similarly, I was amazed that some of the most evil smell produced by bacteria and mold could be so definitively identified as well.
Even since, I've been mystified by the fact that our society has standard color charts for use by artists and precise tuning standards of notes and scales for use by musicians, but there seem to be no standard or measurement criteria for smells or odors. None that are taught in school anyhow. Yet, in everyday literature, we often enough come across descriptions of smells and odors which the authors seem to take for granted without concern for whether the readers know what they are talking about.
And so I ask my fellow slasdoters, how does one concisely characterize the experience of say, the multitude of different ways milk can spoil; the various acridness of old unwashed gym cloths; the powerful fetidness of well-used, unwashed trash containers? and be absolutely certain that one is getting one's point across? Is there a practical dictionary or directory for such things?
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.