Subject: RE: CCL:Spelling of v(V?)an der Waals('?)

From: "H. Tang (UH-Chem)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 23:20:42 -0600 (CST)

>...
>Page 19, second line from bottom:
>
>	The van der Waals equation provides ...
>
>Page 20, third line from top:
>
>	... the van der Waals' equation.
>                        ^^^^^^
>...
>
>Conclusion:
>   Usage or non-usage of the apostrophe (or even being consistent
>about it) does not constitute grounds for rejection of your article,
>book, user manual, or any other document from which you hope to achieve
>fame and fortune.  The same apparently applies to using a small
>or capital "v".
>....
>
>Marvin Waldman, Ph.D.

To add more this thread, in the Grant & Hackh's "Chemical Dictionary"
(5th ed.), I found there are several entries as folloes:

"v. d. W. constant"
"v. d. Waals' equation"
"v. d. W. forces"

As Pieter pointed out earlier, you may capitalize "v".  

For "van der Waals' equation" vis-a-vis "van der Waals equation", both
are very common.  However, I personally believe that "van der Waals'
parameters" is a bad usage, unless the parameters were actually
discovered/derived by van der Waals and named after him (obviously not),
as in the said equation.  With or without an apostrophe, as in
"Washington apple" and "Washington's apple", carries different
connotations associated with it, at least to my ears (I might as well be
wrong,  because I'm not a native English speaker).  

Huang Tang

---

From: [email-masked] (Pieter Stouten)
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 09:24:07 -0500

Hi Marv,

In my opinion, your reasons for spelling "van der Waals" are just as valid
as saying "250 million Americans cannot be wrong." Van der Waals is Dutch
and, therefore, Dutch spelling rules apply. That everybody spells his name
wrong does not make it right. BTW, I noticed that in several of my papers I
wrote "van der Waals" with a small letter, but it may have been the editors
who did that <g>.

Cheers, Pieter.

Pieter Stouten, Senior Research Scientist
Computer Aided Drug Design Group
The DuPont Merck Pharmaceutical Company
P.O. Box 80353, Wilmington, DE 19880-0353
Phone: +1 (302) 695 3515
Fax: +1 (302) 695 2813
Internet: [email-masked]
CompuServe: 73172,2004
WWW: http://www.halcyon.com/stouten/stouten.html