Subject: Re: pronunciation of conformer

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 96 11:56:00 +0100

Today, [email-masked] wrote:

> 
> 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
> 

The stress on the last syllable is not incidental. Quite a number of chemical
expression in German (and I think in some other languages, too) are not derived
from Latin/Greek directly but came via French. For example, "Molek"ul" has
the umlaut from French - the Latin origin is "moles". So the stress on the
last syllable in word ending with "-mer" is probably also due to the French
background. But perhaps the French emphasizing was too unusual to the English
such that the stress was shifted.

So my suggestion is to make use of the analogy to "isomer" and say "CONformer" -
or just "conforMAtional ISOmer".

Best regards,

Thomas Wieland               
Lehrstuhl II f. Mathematik   
Universitaet Bayreuth        
 **** Do you know MOLGEN? **** http://btm2xd.mat.uni-bayreuth.de/molgen ****