Wednesday, September 4, 2013

I Had To Laugh

I was looking up one of these in particular, and found a trove of unusually named chemicals:


Adamantane
Arsole
BARF
Barrelene
Basketane
Bastardane
Bohemamine
Bullvalene
Cadaverine
Churchane
Constipatic acid
Copulins*
Crapinon
Cubane
Cummingtonite
DAMN
Diabolic acid
DEAD
Dickite
Draculin
Earthcide or Fartox
Fenestrane
FOOF
Fornacite
Fucitol
fucK
Fukalite
Hirsutene
Housane
Ladderane
Magic acid
Megaphone
Moronic acid
Mucic acid
Nonanal
Olympiadane
Olympicene
Performic acid
Periodic acid
Picket Fence Porphyrin
Prismane
Putrescine
Quadratic acid
Rednose
Rhamnetin
SEX
Spermine, Spermidine, polyamine
Thebacon
Titanic acid
Traumatic acid
Uranate
Vomitoxin


A fuller list and the etymology for each is given here.
________________________
*I added that one.

20 comments:

The Dude said...

I should have studied chemistry - I have the language down already.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Picket Fence Porphyrin

Was probably added before the real estate crash.

Palladian said...

There are a lot of whimsical compound names used in perfumery. Some of the ones on this list are in my collection, such as borneol (and isoborneol) & nonanal. I've also got things like skatole, peonile, celestolide, lilial, rose oxide, and on and on.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

FOOF

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Ah, I just saw it in your list, lol. Cummingtonite. For Titus.

Aridog said...

Fucitol (almost...heh heh)

deborah said...

What's the name of the chemical that smells like teen spirit?

Palladian said...

deborah, I think it's androstenone.

Palladian said...

(I'm referring to its odor characteristics only, not its function as a pheromone. Contrary to popular belief and a lot of silly marketing, humans can't detect pheromones because our vomeronasal organs aren't functional.)

edutcher said...

The Greeks identified only so many substances.

deborah said...

Thanks, Palladian.

Anonymous said...

Thebacon for the lowcarbers.

Simon Kenton said...

Tri-egrio preposterous innane.

YoungHegelian said...

Of course, we can't forget Illudium Phosdex, the shaving cream molecule, from the original WB Daffy Duck cartoons as "Duck Dogers in the 24 & 1/2 Century".

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Picket Fence Porphyrin was used to stop Pickett's charge.

bagoh20 said...

" The aromaticity of arsoles has been debated for many years.[10] The compound in which a benzene ring is fused to arsole" ~ Wikipedia

If you don't slow down during the hot summer nights you risk this fusing of the ring to the arsole, and that can ruin the whole weekend.

chickelit said...

@Bagoh20: It's well established that rings plug no holes.

chickelit said...

@Lem: Please stop picking on Picket Fence Porphyrins. The inventor is my Doktorgrossvater.

Icepick said...

Somehow this list seems like it should form the basis of a Butthole Surfers song. Something along the line of Clean It Up, wut with lyrics instead of people just hurling for 9 minutes or so.