Subject: Re: pronunciation of conformer

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 10:30:12 +0100 (MEZ)

Hello Fellow-CCL-ers,

   I feel the urge to add my $0.02 to the discussion on the pronunciation
of "conformer". Let me emphasize from the outset that I am German; English
was my second foreign language in school (after starting out with Latin and 
before continuing with ancient Greek - unfortunately, I do not remember much
of my Latin and Greek, but it still helps me sometimes...). 

So far, it seems to me that all of you have missed one vital point:

It is obviously correct that "conFORmer" (with or without capital "m") is
the everyday ( = non-chemical) pronunciation of "conformer" as someone who
conforms. In this sense, "conformer" is formed from its root "conform" (from
con-formare in Latin, as correctly pointed out already -- note that the
"m" belongs to the root!) in one of several possible ways to form nouns in
English, namely by adding the suffix "-er" (as in "think" -> "thinker" or
"wait" -> "waiter" etc.; we have almost the same mechanism in German).

BUT: For the chemical meaning of "conformer" this analysis is not valid!
As the analogy to "isomer" (and to all the other "-mer"'s in chemistry, like
"monomer", "polymer", etc.) shows, the suffix "-mer" clearly is an entity
with its own meaning since "iso-" (like "mono-", "poly-", etc.) merely is a 
simple prefix. The meaning of "-mer" can be found in English dictionaries
that give some etymological background; for example, my "Collins Concise
Dictionary" (English-English, not English-German) tells me this:
   "-mer": suffix forming nouns. <Chem> denoting a substance of a particular
           class: monomer, polymer (from Greek: "meros" = part)

Obviously, in forming the _chemical_ "conformer" from "con-form-" and "-mer"
it is convenient (and commonplace) to drop one of the "m"'s, although this
obscures the true origin and leads to confusion with the above analysis of
"con-form-er" (someone who conforms).

So much for the etymology. Since I am neither a native English speaker nor
an expert in English but merely a German theoretical chemist who happens to 
know some English, you native English speakers have to settle the question
of where to put the stress in "conformer" for yourself.

Incidentally, in German we would say "konFORmer" for someone who conforms --
if we had such a word. But all German chemists say "/con/-for-MER" (secondary
stress on first syllable, primary stress on the last; or "MOnoMER" with about
equal stress on the first and last syllables). I guess this clever way out
is not open for English chemists...

Bernd

-- 
Dr. Bernd Hartke                  e-mail: [email-masked]
Dep. of Theoretical Chemistry     http://www.theochem.uni-stuttgart.de/~hartke
University of Stuttgart           
Pfaffenwaldring 55                Phone: +49-711-685-4409
70569 Stuttgart                   FAX:   +49-711-685-4442
GERMANY