Antwain - 14-10-2007 at 11:31
I was hoping to get some help with chemical nomenclature pertaining to a project I am currently writing up. Of course, hopefully this will stay around
and any other problems that people have in the future can go here too.
As anyone who has written a "proper" writeup will know, there is a tendency for the use of 'big' or 'specialized' words to be used, even though there
is simply no good reason for it (I am in writeup mode or I wouldn't have said "tendency" 
).
my specific concern is that I need to describe combining several diethyl ether portions that were used in an extraction. Now if I had used dichloro
then I would just say "the combined organic layers" or "the combined solvent layers" but I was wondering if "the combined ethereal layers" should be
acceptable, or if "ethereal" has bad alchemical connotations attached?
Obviously you guys are not assessing my work, but it would be good to get some opinions on this, since I need to describe that process several times.
12AX7 - 14-10-2007 at 11:45
I haven't heard "etherial" used much. It does seem more concise as you point out.
Heavy wording and lingo are common, traditional you might even say -- after all, it's a social force to speak the same dialect as others in your
subculture.
A good writer writes for his audience, concise and with little lingo.
Edit: this should probably be on the misc forum.
Tim
[Edited on 10-14-2007 by 12AX7]
S.C. Wack - 14-10-2007 at 12:36
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22combined+ethereal+layers%2...
http://pubs.acs.org/wls/journals/query/subscriberSearch.html
Antwain - 14-10-2007 at 13:08
I was going to put it in miscellaneous, but the topics there were pretty darn miscellaneous.
Thanks. @S.C.Wack- Why didn't I think of that?
smuv - 14-10-2007 at 15:28
I think "the combined extracts" or "pooled extracts would sound a lot better, than "the combined ethereal layers".
Ramiel - 14-10-2007 at 21:46
I commonly encounter, and myself write "combined ethereal layers" or similar. This is common in many journals and AFAIK widely regarded as acceptable
parlance within the discipline of chemistry.
[Edited on 15-10-2007 by Ramiel]
Ozone - 15-10-2007 at 17:40
How about "the organic layers were combined..."?
This is a bit more general because, frequently, the extraction solvent is not ether (sic, diethyl ether).
hmm...DCMeal.
"Lingo" is actually discouraged in favor of a concise statement describing 1) why the work was important, 2) what was done, 3) what happened and 4)
what you believe it meant.
To this thread was added, with stirring, one measure of...
Cheers,
O3