CO2 or carbon dioxide

[keannu]

Do you always read this as "carbon dioxide" or "See Oh Two" as well? I think the same goes for H20 meaning water.
GO2-12)A flight between London Heathrow and New York's John F Kennedy airport creates around 1.35 tons of CO2 per passenger - more than one-third of the yearly emissions of an average person worldwide.

 

[Raymott]

Do you always read this as "carbon dioxide" or "See Oh Two" as well? I think the same goes for H20 meaning water. GO2-12)A flight between London Heathrow and New York's John F Kennedy airport creates around 1.35 tons of CO2 per passenger - more than one-third of the yearly emissions of an average person worldwide.

You can use either and be understood. But if it's written CO2, then I'd read it that way.

 

[emsr2d2]

I would read it as "see-oh-two" as well, especially if reading it aloud. If, however, I was trying to explaining the concept to someone who might not know the chemical elements, I would probably call it carbon dioxide. We read and see CO2 much more frequently than H2O, unless we are in a scientific environment. CO2 has only become relatively well-known due to environmental/green issues.

 

[Raymott]

I would read it as "see-oh-two" as well, especially if reading it aloud. If, however, I was trying to explaining the concept to someone who might not know the chemical elements, I would probably call it carbon dioxide. We read and see CO2 much more frequently than H2O, unless we are in a scientific environment. CO2 has only become relatively well-known due to environmental/green issues.

That's right. It's quite OK in English to say we breathe out CO2, but it's not natural to say we drink H20.

 

[SoothingDave]

I think most people are savvy enough to understand what "H2O" is. (It's what you mix with your C2H5OH.)

 

[Raymott]

I think most people are savvy enough to understand what "H2O" is. (It's what you mix with your C2H5OH.)

I mix soft drink (probably what you'd call pop or soda) with my C2H5OH, unless I'm disinfecting a wound with it.

 

[SoothingDave]

Yeah, but that's just fizzy sugar-water.

 

[eyefordetail]

unless I'm disinfecting a wound with it.

In which case, you can also use C3H7OH.

 

[Route21]

Reminds me of the epitaph:

"Alas, poor Fred, he is no more
For what he thought was H2O was H2SO4!"
;-)

R21

PS: H2SO4 = Sulphuric acid.

 

[BobK]

:up: To say nothing of the K9P joke (low quality of water - you can roll your own )

b

 

[non_e_giusto]

I'm a chemist, not an English teacher. When reading a text out loud, I simply read what it says. If it says CO[SUB][SUP]2[/SUP][/SUB] (officially, the 2 has to be in subscript!), I say "see oh two". If it says carbon dioxide, I say carbon dioxide.

When I'm talking to my colleagues in the lab, the two words are completely interchangeable, and we generally use the shortest. So we say "water" and "ethanol" instead of H[SUB]2[/SUB]O and C[SUB]2[/SUB]H[SUB]5[/SUB]OH because it's shorter (count the syllables), but we generally say CO[SUB]2[/SUB] instead of carbon dioxide, for the same reason.

 

[konungursvia]

I did a degree in chemistry a while back. We usually write ethanol as CH3CH2OH these days, if we must use a non-structural formula.

 

[non_e_giusto]

I did a degree in chemistry a while back. We usually write ethanol as CH3CH2OH these days, if we must use a non-structural formula.

I wouldn't do that personally. It's extra work for nothing.

The overall formula for ethanol is C[SUB]2[/SUB]H[SUB]6[/SUB]O, however, we often write C[SUB]2[/SUB]H[SUB]5[/SUB]OH, to distinguish it from CH[SUB]3[/SUB]OCH[SUB]3[/SUB], which has the same overall formula. However, there is no need to write C[SUB]2[/SUB]H[SUB]5[/SUB]- as CH[SUB]3[/SUB]CH[SUB]2[/SUB]-, simply because there is no isomer for it. C[SUB]2[/SUB]H[SUB]5[/SUB]- can only mean one thing, so going through the trouble of writing it all out (even though it isn't technically wrong), makes little sense.

 

[konungursvia]

Maybe it's a local thing. But chemistry is nowhere near as clear cut when you actually work with chemists in the lab. Why do we use the terms acetone and acetic acid, when UIPAC correctly gives us propanone and ethanoic acid? These terms date from a time when people weren't sure how many carbon atoms were in them: acetone (3), acetic acid (2). But university chemists are an education-oriented bunch here, so maybe they used the convention CH3CH2OH so us kids could correctly visualise the structural formula from this molecular formula.

 

[non_e_giusto]

You make some good points. Where I'm at, chemists at the university aren't very education oriented at all (something I wish they would change). If that is the reasoning behind it, I'd say it makes sense.

 

[Barb_D]

Two scientists walked into a bar.
The first one said "I'll have some H2O"
The second one said "I"ll have some H2O too." Sadly, he got what he asked for and died.

 

[konungursvia]

Or dyed blonde.

 

[emsr2d2]

... so maybe they used the convention CH3CH2OH so us kids could correctly visualise the structural formula from this molecular formula.

Oh yeah, I distinctly remember thinking "Wow, that's so much clearer" when I was a kid reading that! ;-) (PS - didn't take chemistry or physics and was thrown out of O Level Biology after one term.)

 

[konungursvia]

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_-PrKIBlvP.../eM0fEr1EUmM/s1600/800px-Ethanol-3D-balls.png