Writing in Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood (Bookshop|Amazon) about his youthful fascination with chemistry, Oliver Sacks notes that lead acetate once went by the more appetizing name sugar of lead. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Sugar of Lead”
Here’s another lovely chemical term that’s been replaced. Sugar of lead, sugar of lead is now lead acetate.
As I said, there’s, you know, you lose something and you gain something when when language changes.
Yeah, you don’t want sugar of lead in your coffee. Words@waywordradio.org
