From Bernd.Hartke@RUS.Uni-Stuttgart.DE Tue Mar 19 05:17:20 1996 Received: from artemis.rus.uni-stuttgart.de for Bernd.Hartke@RUS.Uni-Stuttgart.DE by www.ccl.net (8.7.1/950822.1) id EAA24566; Tue, 19 Mar 1996 04:30:44 -0500 (EST) From: Received: from servus02.rus.uni-stuttgart.de (servus02-fd.rus.uni-stuttgart.de [129.69.18.202]) by artemis.rus.uni-stuttgart.de with SMTP id KAA09219 (8.6.12/IDA-1.6 for ); Tue, 19 Mar 1996 10:30:14 +0100 Received: from servus07.rus.uni-stuttgart.de by servus02.rus.uni-stuttgart.de (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/SERVus-1.2) id AA43804; Tue, 19 Mar 1996 10:30:14 +0100 Received: by servus07.rus.uni-stuttgart.de (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA23465; Tue, 19 Mar 1996 10:30:13 +0100 Message-Id: <9603190930.AA23465@servus07.rus.uni-stuttgart.de> Subject: Re: pronunciation of conformer To: chemistry@www.ccl.net Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 10:30:12 +0100 (MEZ) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 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. 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: bernd.hartke@rus.uni-stuttgart.de 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 From polowin@hyper.hyper.com Tue Mar 19 12:24:10 1996 Received: from www.hyper.com for polowin@hyper.hyper.com by www.ccl.net (8.7.1/950822.1) id LAA01669; Tue, 19 Mar 1996 11:50:49 -0500 (EST) Received: from hyper.hyper.com (hyper.hyper.com [204.50.97.9]) by www.hyper.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA15631 for <@www.hyper.com:CHEMISTRY@www.ccl.net>; Tue, 19 Mar 1996 12:07:29 -0500 Received: by hyper.hyper.com (920330.SGI/920502.SGI) for @www.hyper.com:CHEMISTRY@www.ccl.net id AA22153; Tue, 19 Mar 96 12:07:18 -0500 Date: Tue, 19 Mar 96 12:07:18 -0500 From: polowin@hyper.hyper.com (Joel Polowin) Message-Id: <9603191707.AA22153@hyper.hyper.com> To: CHEMISTRY@www.ccl.net Subject: HyperChem Lite demo at ACS I'd like to jump on the promotional bandwagon and extend a brief invitation to those of you who will be attending the ACS conference in New Orleans to stop by the Hypercube booth, #929, in the exhibitors' area. We'll be showing off our new "HyperChem Lite" software package (and our new display booth). People who place orders at the show will receive their choice of a free HyperChem T-shirt or golf shirt. We'll have information and demo disks for HyperChem Lite at the show, and of course we can mail them on request. Joel ------------ Joel Polowin, Ph.D. Manager, Scientific Support Email to: polowin@hyper.com Hypercube Inc, 419 Phillip St, Waterloo, Ont, Canada N2L 3X2 (519)725-4040 Info requests to: info@hyper.com Support questions to: support@hyper.com Email group: Send "subscribe hyperchem" to hyperchem-request@hyper.com WWW: http://www.hyper.com/