Why does English mess up oxygen and oxide?

According to https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=oxide it was coined in
French in 1787 from ox(ygène) and (ac)ide, but in French it is oxyde and
according to my etymo-Larousse straight from gr. oxys, as from 1787.
Also in other languages you'll see d. Oxyd, nl. oxyde...

--
guido wugi

On Friday, December 17, 2021 at 6:31:45 AM UTC-5, wugi wrote:

> Why does English mess up oxygen and oxide?
>
> According to https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=oxide it was coined in
> French in 1787 from ox(ygène) and (ac)ide, but in French it is oxyde and
> according to my etymo-Larousse straight from gr. oxys, as from 1787.
> Also in other languages you'll see d. Oxyd, nl. oxyde...

What do all those other languages do for all the salts with the suffix -ide?

Op 17-12-2021 om 14:43 schreef Peter T. Daniels:
> On Friday, December 17, 2021 at 6:31:45 AM UTC-5, wugi wrote:
>
>> Why does English mess up oxygen and oxide?
>>
>> According to https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=oxide it was coined in
>> French in 1787 from ox(ygène) and (ac)ide, but in French it is oxyde and
>> according to my etymo-Larousse straight from gr. oxys, as from 1787.
>> Also in other languages you'll see d. Oxyd, nl. oxyde...
>
> What do all those other languages do for all the salts with the suffix -ide?

True, also a mess.
My Dutch and German diccionaries only bring oxyde, Oxyd, but
https://etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/oxide only gives oxide, as does
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomenclatuur_(scheikunde) which lists
oxide together with other -ides.
Same in German https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomenklatur_(Chemie) -oxiden.
In French you've got oxydes, but their counterparts are called -ures:
chlorure de sodium (salt:), fluorure...

Fuzzy sources and usage, then.

--
guido wugi

On 2021-12-17, wugi <wugi@scrlt.com> wrote:

> Why does English mess up oxygen and oxide?
>
> According to https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=oxide it was coined in
> French in 1787 from ox(ygène) and (ac)ide, but in French it is oxyde and
> according to my etymo-Larousse straight from gr. oxys, as from 1787.

TLFi concurs that de Morveau coined it as _oxide_ in 1787 and
supplies this quotation:
Nous avons formé le mot oxide qui d'une part rappelle la substance
avec laquelle le métal est uni, qui d'autre part annonce suffisamment
que cette combinaison de l'oxigène ne doit pas être confondue
avec la combinaison acide.

The spelling _oxyde_ is first attested in 1801 in French.
https://www.cnrtl.fr/etymologie/oxyde

> Also in other languages you'll see d. Oxyd, nl. oxyde...

German has been aligning the spelling of chemical nomenclature with
international standards (i.e., English) in recent decades, although
the old spellings continue to float around outside the scientific
literature.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

Op 17/12/2021 om 15:48 schreef Christian Weisgerber:
> On 2021-12-17, wugi <wugi@scrlt.com> wrote:
>
>> Why does English mess up oxygen and oxide?
>>
>> According to https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=oxide it was coined in
>> French in 1787 from ox(ygène) and (ac)ide, but in French it is oxyde and
>> according to my etymo-Larousse straight from gr. oxys, as from 1787.
> TLFi concurs that de Morveau coined it as _oxide_ in 1787 and
> supplies this quotation:
> Nous avons formé le mot oxide qui d'une part rappelle la substance
> avec laquelle le métal est uni, qui d'autre part annonce suffisamment
> que cette combinaison de l'oxigène ne doit pas être confondue
> avec la combinaison acide.

Well, that's confusing too, isn't it? If the intention had been to avoid
confusion between acide and oxide, what you'd expect would be precisely
a spelling difference. Taking as a reference "oxygène", that means;
speaking of which that "oxigène" doesn't look orthodox either. According
to my Larousse "on a hésité, à l'époque [1783], entre oxygène et oxygine
(du lat. gignere, engendrer)." Not between oxigène et oxygène :)

> The spelling _oxyde_ is first attested in 1801 in French.
> https://www.cnrtl.fr/etymologie/oxyde
>
>> Also in other languages you'll see d. Oxyd, nl. oxyde...
> German has been aligning the spelling of chemical nomenclature with
> international standards (i.e., English) in recent decades, although
> the old spellings continue to float around outside the scientific
> literature.

--

guido wugi

On Friday, December 17, 2021 at 10:30:06 AM UTC-5, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> On 2021-12-17, wugi <wu...@scrlt.com> wrote:
>
> > Why does English mess up oxygen and oxide?
> >
> > According to https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=oxide it was coined in
> > French in 1787 from ox(ygène) and (ac)ide, but in French it is oxyde and
> > according to my etymo-Larousse straight from gr. oxys, as from 1787.
> TLFi concurs that de Morveau coined it as _oxide_ in 1787 and
> supplies this quotation:
> Nous avons formé le mot oxide qui d'une part rappelle la substance
> avec laquelle le métal est uni, qui d'autre part annonce suffisamment
> que cette combinaison de l'oxigène ne doit pas être confondue
> avec la combinaison acide.
>
> The spelling _oxyde_ is first attested in 1801 in French.
> https://www.cnrtl.fr/etymologie/oxyde

If you like "oxyde," you ought to also like "hydrode"!

> > Also in other languages you'll see d. Oxyd, nl. oxyde...
>
> German has been aligning the spelling of chemical nomenclature with
> international standards (i.e., English) in recent decades, although
> the old spellings continue to float around outside the scientific
> literature.

When did they discover that salts like the chlorides and iodides,
at least, were the same sort of thing? (Perhaps not sodium chloride,
because sodium metal came along a bit later, and perhaps not the
fluorides, because flourine bonds so tenaciously.),

Asimov's *Building Blocks of the Universe* was one of my favorites
--his first or one of his first science books (1957) -- apparently out
of print but used copies command surprisingly high prices.

Fri, 17 Dec 2021 15:46:53 +0100: wugi <wugi@scrlt.com> scribeva:
>> What do all those other languages do for all the salts with the suffix -ide?
>
>True, also a mess.
>My Dutch and German diccionaries only bring oxyde, Oxyd, but
>https://etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/oxide only gives oxide, as does
>https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomenclatuur_(scheikunde) which lists
>oxide together with other -ides.

In the official Woordenlijsten (Words Lists) of 1954 and 1990, it was
still -oxyde and oxyderen (the verb). This was changed in 1954, when
it became -oxide and oxideren, as it still is today.

>Same in German https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomenklatur_(Chemie) -oxiden.
>In French you've got oxydes, but their counterparts are called -ures:
>chlorure de sodium (salt:), fluorure...

Interlingua of course still has the y, and will not change.

On Fri, 17 Dec 2021, Ruud Harmsen wrote:

> Fri, 17 Dec 2021 15:46:53 +0100: wugi <wugi@scrlt.com> scribeva:
> >> What do all those other languages do for all the salts with the suffix -ide?
> >
> >True, also a mess.
> >My Dutch and German diccionaries only bring oxyde, Oxyd, but
> >https://etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/oxide only gives oxide, as does
> >https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomenclatuur_(scheikunde) which lists
> >oxide together with other -ides.
>
> In the official Woordenlijsten (Words Lists) of 1954 and 1990, it was
> still -oxyde and oxyderen (the verb). This was changed in 1954, when
> it became -oxide and oxideren, as it still is today.
>
> >Same in German https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomenklatur_(Chemie) -oxiden.

Chemical nomenclature has been angl... internationalised in several steps,
and it is not easy to find out what happened when. My 1961 Duden has
"Oxid" (also obsolescent "Oxyd") but only "oxydieren", "oxydation" and
"-oxy-" as prefix. At least "oxidieren/-dation" is meanwhile an accepted
version.

The names "Ether", "Ethan/-en/-in" are still strictly reserved for
scientific jargon. Commonly they are called "Äther", "Äthan", "Äthylen",
and "Acetylen".

Note that German, other than English, has fairly straightforward
pronunciation rules, according to which the new spelling will change the
pronunciation:
Oxid [ɔˈksiːd̥] – Oxyd [ɔˈksyːd̥], Ether [ˈʔeːtɐ] – Äther [ˈʔɛːtɐ]

--
Helmut Richter