Re: Non-trivial trivial names? -Reply -Reply

From:Tony Henwood <AnthonyH@chw.edu.au>

OK,

What about different names for the same dye eg Light Green, otherwise
known as Acid Green 5, otherwise known as Lissamine Green S.F.
Whew, thank heavens, we scientists have Colour Index numbers. One
dye - many names- one CI Number.

You can't misspell a number!!


>>> <RichardWHorobin@aol.com> 13/February/2001 07:52pm >>>
Tony says:

> I will remove the second T from the word. But does this really matter!!!
> Getting into a linguistic battle doesn't seem worth it. ?haematoxylin or
> hematoxylin, hybridisation or hybridization, colour or color??? Haven't
we
> got more important things to ponder than American v English v
Australian
> v German Spelling???
> .

Take your point Tony about priorities of everyday lab life, but I dont think 
nomenclature is ALL navel gazing.

Not if youre trying to find references on line, for instance. Which I was 
just when this thread started, hence maybe my interest?

In the examples you give, asking for 'hematoxylin' will fail to find 
'haematoxylin' and vice versa. Of course some electronic bibliographic 
systems let you do a wildcard search, and ask for (say) 'h?ematoxylin'
which 
would find both forms.

But maybe you wouldnt bother to do this, or even know how the
particular 
system you wee using (they're all different) if you'd already decided it
was 
trivial, would you? So you'd miss things. 

Bye for now - Richard Horobin

Institute of Biomedical & Life Sciences, University of Glasgow
T direct 01796-474 480 --- E  RichardWHorobin@aol.com
"What should we expect? Everything."




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