title: 'Heavy metal'--time to move on from semantics to pragmatics?
abstract: Despite the repeated calls to stop, most notably in a technical publication of the International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the use of the term 'heavy metal' appears not to have declined in the scientific literature and there is little evidence that the IUPAC instructions and those of other publications have had any measurable impact on this widespread usage. Indeed, the use of the term is increasing rather than declining. Four options are presented to solve this dilemma.
authors.affiliation: Bournemouth University, School of Conservation Sciences, Talbot Campus, Fern Barrow, Poole, Dorset BH12 5BB, UK. r.huebner@bangor.ac.uk
authors.forename: Ralf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hübner
authors.forename: K Brian
authors.initials: KB
authors.lastname: Astin
authors.forename: Roger J H
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Herbert
mesh_terms: D002621:Chemistry / Q000592:standards; D016206:Databases, Bibliographic; D019216:Metals, Heavy / Q000592:standards*; D057386:Search Engine; D012660:Semantics; D009626:Terminology as Topic
chemical_list: D019216:Metals, Heavy