Olivia, a sixth-grader in Somerville, New Jersey, says she and her classmates were flummoxed by a word on their spelling-bee study list: xylyl. It’s a term from chemistry, referring to a group of atoms derived from a liquid called xylene. One source...
A woman in Cheyenne, Wyoming, says her mom used to refer to the cloudy scum that sometimes forms atop vinegar as mother. The term has been around at least 500 years, and can refer to the scum on the top or sediment on the bottom. It’s also used as a...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s puzzle is inspired by the periodic table, and involves adding the chemical symbol for an element to one word in order to form an entirely new word. For example, if you take the hat from a baseball fan and add helium to it...
What’s so special about the phrase Sit on a pan, Otis? It’s an example of a palindrome — a word or phrase that’s spelled the same backwards as it is forwards. This year’s contest known as the Oscars of the palindrome world inspires some clever, even...
Phthalate, a compound in chemistry, got us thinking about other words with ph and th right next to each other. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Words with Ph-Th” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Susan from San Antonio...
With all its specialized notation and rules and means of expressing ideas, is it correct to say that chemistry is a language? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Chemistry is a Language” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hey, this is...
