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Posts: 275
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 275 |
tsuwm>>what is my favorite word? pull-ease!
This is just the funniest phrase I have read so far this evening, considering where we are and what we are doing.
I met a new word last month while reading Harper's Magazine.
The word is deliquescence. The word deliquesce means to dissolve and become liquid by absorbing mositure from the air.
Michael Hitchens used it in an unusual way in this article. He wrote" Kissinger now argues, in the third volume of his memoirs, “Years of Renewal”, that he was prevented and distracted, by Watergate and the deliquescence of the Nixon presidency, from taking a timely or informed interest in the crucial triangleof Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus."
Harper’s Magazine
March 2001p.54 paragraph 1
chronist
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear wordcrazy: deliquescence is a handy word in chemistry, where something you have worked hard to make can have its appearance spoiled if you don't get it into a jar quickly.
Both sugar and salt have this problem to a minor degree.
Deliquescence is not a good fit for the disintegration of the Nixon administration, which did not become liquid from absorbing moisture, but underwent autolysis from the enzymes liberated by corruption.
Below is a link giving complete discussion.
http://antoine.fsu.umd.edu/chem/senese/101/compounds/faq/why-hygroscopic.shtml
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004 |
Hey wordcrazy and Bill
We learned, in Chemistry, of both deliquescence and hygroscopy. One of them referred to substances that merely absorbed moisture from air without changing form, while the other referred to substances that, effectively, sowed thesseds of their own solution... But I had always remembered hygroscopy as the latter. Shows what years away from the classroom can do, eh?
cheer
the sunshine warrior
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Re:Deliquescence vs. hygroscopy
Dear Shanks: I guess my chemistry must be at least twenty five years older than yours, and my recollection of it less than half yours. I can't remember the product I made that would completely turn to liquid if left uncovered. I had totally forgotten "hygroscopy". Looking at dictionary, I now have impression that things like sugar and salt are merely hygroscopic. Deliquescence has to be rather uncommon. Link below gives complete explanation.
http://antoine.fsu.umd.edu/chem/senese/101/compounds/faq/why-hygroscopic.shtml
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Joined: Mar 2000
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004 |
Bill
Do you remember an Isaac Asimov story about a substance that was so hygroscopic/deliquescent it dissolved before it actually touched the water? He used this as the base for some interesting/farcical time travel paradox stories. I think the substance was called thio-something.
Any ideas? Anyone? Google, for once, is not really helping...
cheer
the sunshine warrior
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004 |
Got it!
"The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline" - Isaac Asimov. First published in 1948.
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