Argh, synthesis.

[baratron]

I'm trying to make sense of the synthesis route that I'll need to follow once I get into the lab. The two problems I'm having with it are (a) that it is written in a highly condensed "scientific" style whereby all the conditions, masses and concentrations are crammed into the paragraph in brackets and (b) that the person who wrote it is either dyslexic or a really bad typist (impossible to tell which). All I know is that "Cream percipitae was then fillitered off and washed with water affording Z16 as a cream percipitate." is not English.

I presume that what happened was that Microsoft Word put little wavy red lines under absolutely everything (since it will only recognise the simplest of chemical names), and so key words like "precipitate" and "filtered" slipped through with their "interesting" spellings. There even exists an Open Source chemistry spellchecker, but too many people don't know about it yet. I wish College would automatically install it on all machines that are likely to be used by chemists...

I am however pleased to note that the starting chemical for one of my syntheses is vanillin. I predict being RAVINGLY HUNGRY for the whole of that day ;)

Comments

[hoopycat (from livejournal.com)]

It might have put wavy red lines under misspelled words and wavy green lines under grammar problems, which are also incredibly common in technical documents. Throw in some red/green colorblindness and, bam, you've got spelling errors AND grammar errors.

I usually aim for zero wavy lines, even when I'm typing weird stuff. Verify that one instance of the word is correct, then add it to the ignore list for the document. This is either 6σ or OCD, I don't know which.