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Newscripts

Chemistry wordhunt, A century of food accessories

July 10, 2006 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 84, Issue 28

Chemistry wordhunt

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Credit: photo by Michael Freemantle
Credit: photo by Michael Freemantle

Earlier this year, BBC television broadcast in the U.K. an entertaining and informative series of programs titled "Balderdash & Piffle" that aimed to help update the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).

The TV series was based on a "wordhunt appeal" for information on 50 words. The public was invited to add earlier evidence of the history of these words and to help write entries for words that are now in usage but not found in the dictionary. For example, the term "back to square one" was previously thought to have originated in 1960 but was antedated to 1952 thanks to the wordhunt appeal. The appeal also unearthed evidence that the term "ploughman's lunch"−typically a plate of bread, butter, cheese, and pickles served in English pubs−was introduced in 1960 rather than 1970 as suggested in OED. The contributions were assessed by a panel of OED staff, and some of the changes and additions will be made in the next edition of OED.

None of the 50 words considered in the TV series is directly related to chemistry, but author Alex Games does offer some words on the subject in his book "Balderdash & Piffle" that accompanied the series (London: BBC Books, 2006). For example, he points out that the word "alcohol" derives from the Arabic word "kohl"−a substance that was and still is used by women in the East to darken the area around their eyelids. Women such as Jezebel and Cleopatra, he adds, "must have made use of this bewitching substance to cast their spell over men." The word was eventually molded into "kuhhul," meaning spirit. The prefix "al" is the Arabic word for "the."

The words "algebra" and "alchemy" also derive from Arabic. Another example is "alkali," which Games curiously defines as "the salty substance at the other end of the pH scale from acid." He writes that the word was anglicized from the French word "alcali," which derives from the Arabic verb "qalay," meaning "to fry or roast in a pan." Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th Edition) indicates that the word originates from "al-qili"−the Arabic word for "ashes of the plant saltwort."

The second and current edition of the 20-volume OED, published by Oxford University Press in 1989, is available in print or on CD-ROM. The dictionary is also available as OED Online, which is updated with at least 1,000 new and revised entries quarterly.

A century of food accessories

We now know them as vitamins, yet just 100 years ago, when the concept was first introduced, they were known as "food accessory factors." It was not until six years later, that Polish-born biochemist Casimir Funk (1884-1967) coined the term "vitamines," mistakenly supposing these vital organic trace nutrients to be amines. The word was subsequently shortened to "vitamins" when it became known that the nutrients are not amines.

The food accessory concept was introduced in 1906 by Frederick Gowland Hopkins (1861-1947), who became known as the father of British biochemistry. In the following years, his research at Cambridge University showed that rats failed to grow when they were fed with dietary mixtures of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and salts. When the diet was supplemented by minute quantities of milk, the rats grew vigorously.

In 1914, Hopkins became the first professor of biochemistry at Cambridge University; he was knighted in 1925. He was awarded the 1929 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for his discovery of the growth-stimulating vitamins," sharing it with Dutch physician and pathologist Christiaan Eijkman (1858-1930), who had discovered that beriberi was caused by the deficiency of a vital substance in food.

In his Nobel lecture, Hopkins observed that Funk "protests against my being called the 'discoverer of vitamins.' " He added: "In this protest he was justified; I have certainly never made any personal claim to be their 'discoverer.' " Hopkins pointed out that there is no clear answer to the question: Who discovered vitamins? "So often in the development of science, a fundamental idea is foreshadowed in many quarters but has long to wait before it emerges as a basis of accepted knowledge," he said.

This week's column was written by Michael Freemantle. Please send comments and suggestions to newscripts@acs.org.

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