• Sterile_Technique@lemmy.worldEnglish
      14·
      6 months ago

      This is medicine in a nutshell too. And not just abbreviations, but acronyms… for words in a language that no one uses. I hate it.

      • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        121·
        6 months ago

        I literally took Latin in college for the sole reason that Latin is used in super stupid ways, and my science communication degree would be worth less without that knowledge. Because Latin-base is fully half of the science terms you need to know.

        And my college was super on board with my reasoning. Wish I’d also had the mental capacity for ancient Greek, because that’s literally the other half of naming schemes.

        Ridiculous.

        I’m super into modern scientists giving shit pop culture names. Because holy shit is it ever more memorable than some random Latin/greek bullshit.

        • oo1@lemmings.worldEnglish
          4·
          6 months ago

          Strange that ‘classics’ are taught mostly in the poshest schools. It’s rare for elites to want to preserve any power they have and make it inaccessible to oiks. /s

      • Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world
        61·
        6 months ago

        Well, what other language should be used? Latin is the language of science because there’s no way we’d ever agree on which alive language to use.

        • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
          3·
          6 months ago

          Latin is prelevant but many anatomy terms and conditions are Greek because a lot of the literature first describing conditions and early anatomy was Greek. Heme for blood, dermis for skin, cholecyst(bile bladder) for gallbladder, cyst for bladder ect. Anatomy itself is a word that comes from Greek.

          • grandkaiser@lemmy.world
            7·
            6 months ago

            It’s called Sodium in English because an English chemist Sir Humphrey Davy discovered it & named it “Sodium” He was able to isolate it via separation of caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) and therefore named it after the caustic soda “soda-ium”. A few years later, a German chemist (Ludwig Wilhelm Gilbert) was able to isolate it and named it “Natronium” Just under a decade later, Jöns Jacob Berzelius coined the term “Natrium” as he felt the name “Natronium” was too lengthy to catch on.

            As to exactly why the earlier term was not respected is likely due to nationalism. During the earlier 1800’s a lot of countries were desperately trying to take claim for various rapid advancements in chemistry, physics, mathematics, and medicine. Getting to have the name that “your guy” coined was largely bent around national pride.

            • pumpkinseedoil@sh.itjust.works
              2·
              6 months ago

              Ty. So the question for its rightful name simply depends on whether you give it to the one who discovered it or the one who isolated it, interesting.

              I’ll skip that discussion and just say Natrium sounds better

  • thefartographer@lemm.ee
    25·
    6 months ago

    Everyone knows that iron, like all abbreviated four-letter nouns gets abbreviated as the first three letters.

    Iro
    Jun
    Fuc

    See? Easy peasy

  • AbsentBird@lemm.eeEnglish
    25·
    6 months ago

    People will hate on this, but what other breakfast cereal contains dental X-rays in every crunch?

  • spujb@lemmy.cafeEnglish
    16·
    6 months ago

    Yeah, my good buddy is from Genovia, where they use a regional version of the periodic table with more human-friendly names. They use Ca for calcium, Ir for iron, Hy for hydrogen, and Ox for oxygen. This change was their answer to the metric system—a way to make science more accessible to everyone ostensibly I believe.

    Back in the 1960s, Gennovia was looking to bolster its local industry and economy. The government decided that simplifying scientific terms would help more people get into science and technology fields. It seems to be working because their literacy rates in science are through the roof? Somehow. They even have Ni for nickel and Si for silver, making it so much easier to remember what’s what. I didn’t know it was prevalent enough that it made its way onto package branding tho. Interesting stuff.