title: Stereochemical terminology and its discontents.
abstract: Scrutiny of the purported misuse of some current stereochemical terms shows that obsolescence and faulty syntax may be less of a problem than previously assumed. Furthermore, changes in stereochemical terminology over time are not always due to obsolescence or to novel developments in chemical technology; for example, technical developments played no role whatsoever in the semantic transmutations over time of the terms "diastereomer" and "pseudoasymmetry." Finally, definitions of many stereochemical terms acquire meaning only within a given context and therefore cannot always be easily formulated. A prime example is the definition of "chirality," the concept at the heart of stereochemistry and, not coincidentally, the name of the journal in which this essay appears in print.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA. kmislow@princeton.edu
authors.forename: Kurt
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Mislow