I just accomplished something at work that I thought I couldn't do, so I am rewarding myself by posting to this forum for the first time.

Inventing the word "dextrocentric" seemed obviously necessary to me when my daughter started using her hands for things beyond the random infantile waving and poking of self in eye: i.e., eating, drawing, using scissors, etc. She was obviously left handed, and suddenly my consciousness was raised about how many processes in our daily lives use tools that operate on the assumption that the person using them is right handed. And I say, when a phenomenon exists, it needs a name.

When I used the term in speaking to one of my co-workers, he thought I was talking about dextrose at first. I told him the words were related, that dextrose is probably a right handed molecule. He asked me how you could tell a molecule was right handed, so I suggested he watch it write a check. I don't remember enough chemistry to know how a molecule can be right handed, I just know it can.

This is my bid for immortality.

Welcome, birdfeed (I like the handle).

I am just learning about the complexity of isomers due to a post by wwh (familiarly know as Dr. Bill). I had known only what I think of as D-isomers and L-isomers for right and left handed versions of complex molecules that can be oriented in two different ways. There are other isomer pairs, notably endo and exo isomers, but them I have no idea what differentiates them. It gets kind of technical on the molecular level. As far as I know the choice of handedness in the designation of these molecules is purely arbitrary.

Thanks. Yer own self-described better half put the idea of "birdfeed" in my head. Having read your response, I must say I vastly prefer "right-handed" and "left-handed" to the non-hyphenated versions I used.

self-described better half

We're a team. Which of us is the better half varies from situation to situation. Or so she permits me to believe

Deaar Faldage: If I remember correctly, Pasteur discovered optical isomerism, and made
several of the original contributions thereto. I'll try to see if I can find anything worth
posting.

The sites I found were rather volminous to quote from, you can copy and paste from this:

1.Optical isomerism - Wikipedia - ... First discovered by Louis Pasteur in the nineteenth
century, the study of optical isomerism is called stereochemistry. Optical isomers ...
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_isomerism search within this site

2.Stereoisomerism - ... Optical Isomerism. ... the plane of polarised light and this was known as
optical activity. Louis Pasteur discovered that when 2,3-dihydroxy (tartaric) acid was ...
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~freya01/stereoisomerism.htm

3.ISOMERISM AND STEREOCHEMISTRY Jack DeRuiter I. Basic Principles (PDF) - ...
Pasteur further demonstrated that the left- and right-handed crystals were mirror images of each
other ... Figure 3. Tetrahedral geometry and optical isomerism III ...
http://www.auburn.edu/~deruija/pdastch1.pdf

Thanks, Dr. Bill. I'd like some good stuff on this whole subject. My guess on endo and exo isomers is that they have, respectively, radicals pointing in and out of the basic structure. ¿Qué no?

Dear Faldage: I am completely ignorant about endo- and exo- isomerism. Here's a bunch
of sites:
1.REACTIONS IN SUPERCRITICAL CARBON DIOXIDE - ... Alder reactions. It is well known
that many Diels-Alder reactions result in formation of variable mixtures of endo- and exo-isomers.
...
http://www.chem.leeds.ac.uk/People/CMR/da.html search within this site

2.exo/endo-7-NORCARANOL - ... 7. The exo/endo ratio is 6:1; the exo and endo isomers
show characteristic triplets in their nmr spectra at d 2.9 and 3.1 ppm, respectively. ...
http://www.orgsyn.org/orgsyn/orgsyn/prepContent.asp?prep=CV5P0859 search within this site

3.E033: Troubles With Isomers Of (Isodicp)Ticl<Sub>3</Sub> - ... The two isomers of
(isodiCp)TiCl 3 have similar unit cells in the orthorhombic crystal system: endo with a = 9.134(1),
b = 12.328(1), c = 10.314(1) Å, and exo ...
http://www.hwi.buffalo.edu/ACA/ACA97/abstracts/text/E033.html search within this site

4.electronic poster - ... as shown in Scheme 3. Thus condensation of the endo- anhydride with ...
Interestingly, attempts to extend this chemistry to the exo-isomers of compounds (10) and ...
http://www.ch.kcl.ac.uk/kclchem/staff/mno/poster.htm search within this site

5.Chapter 2 Stereochemical Principles Isomers (PDF) - 1 1 Chapter 2 Stereochemical
Principles Problems: 1 (4 pts), 2 (4 pts), 5 (2 pts), 6 (6 pts), 10 (7 pts), 16 (4 pts), 18 (3 pts) 2
Isomers * Same formula ...
http://www.cns.uni.edu/~macmilla/carroll/Carroll02.pdf search within this site

back to the matter at <ahem> hand, google finds no hits for dextrocentric; but does turn up this for dexterocentric, from Feb., 2000: http://www.dailyemerald.com/archive/v101/2/000224/letters.html

I don't know which I like better.

Unfortunately, these all look like sites that expect you to know what they are before you enter.

Now Google® is chopped liver?

http://makeashorterlink.com/?H2B232382

I must have typo'd, although I don't know how since I just inserted an 'e' to google dexterocentric!?

Well damn. I wonder which of us used the word first. In this vein, I suggest another word I invented for my daughter's benefit: ambisinister. This word describes anyone who is primarily left-handed but who can use his right hand almost as well.

http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/abc.htm#ambisinistrous : )

Kinda like the individual, yet cosmically concurrent, discovery of fire, huh.

I guess it's not nice to make chopped liver of Anu:

http://wordsmith.org/awad/archives/0701

[scroll-down]

chopped liver of Anu

Course birdfeed's definition is kinda at odds with Anu's.

>at odds

just so
-joe pâté

Course birdfeed's definition is kinda at odds with Anu's.

Yeah, I meant it as merely a description with no connotations. I was trying to fly in the face of, well, dextrochauvinist tradition, as expressed by the connotations of words like maladroit, gauche, sinister, etc.

Honest, Officer, I never seen the word before.

>I was trying to fly in the face of, well, dextrochauvinist tradition

A warm welcome from the top of the world, birdfeed. Any friend of the ASp is certain to be asset to us all. Nice word, that dextrochauvinist, I shall use it often. Your "ambisinister" crusade is a noble cause, one that has been played out here before by some of the Elect, but sadly the cause appears to be lost. Never mind, if you remove the ordinary and banal from the world, we're what's Left. Dieu et mon gauche.

Some of us like the term ambimanual.

>ambimanual

Sorry, too wishy-washy, too namby-pamby. We need an affirmative action kinda word, one that gives all those dextrochauvinists a taste of their own medicine. We have millennia of such prejudice to fight against (as an aside, the highest mark I ever received for a German essay was on this very subject).

since someone gauchely mentioned that this is a yart, here it is:

http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=weeklythemes&Number=34275

[Runs screaming from the room shouting chemistry! chemistry! argh! ]

To relieve your fears of chemistry, let me point out that Dorothy L. Sayers, the queen of mystery writers, wrote a very fine novel (The Documents in the Case) in which the solution of the murder turned on the dextro- and laevo- forms of muscarine. Highly recommended, also since it's the only good epistolary novel other than The Moonstone.

"To relieve your fears of chemistry, let me point out that Dorothy L. Sayers, the queen of mystery writers,
wrote a very fine novel (The Documents in the Case) "

Yes! I read that, and that may very well be where I first encountered the concept. It's a very good novel, and one of the most interesting things to me was that I read it in college, and again some 20 years later. By the time of the second reading my sympathies had completely realigned to different characters.

Years ago I got all excited when I read an article saying that a "left-handed" sugar molecule had been created, and that they were going to try and produce enough of it to market. Supposedly it contained all the properties of "normal" (right-handed molecule) sugar, except--that the left-handedness would cause your body not to process it. So I thought people were going to be able to eat all the sweets they wanted to with no effects from the sugar. But I never heard anything more about it. Pity.

According to this site http://131.104.232.9/fsnet/2001/4-2001/fs-04-16-01-01.txt it was too expensive to make and they couldn't get the stock price high enough to make it worth while.

According to this site http://www.jhu.edu/~jhumag/1102web/sweet.html it's coming next year.

But sucrose is made up of fructose and glucose and fructose is left-handed and glucose is right-handed, per this site http://rutchem.rutgers.edu/Courses_s99/Chem128/c15.html

You'll note that that's not the only difference between fructose and glucose. I'm a little vague on what happens when you smack them together; Sucrose is C12H22O11 and fructose and gluscose are both C6H12O6 and that doesn't quite add up but.

>Sucrose is C12H22O11 and fructose and gluscose are both C6H12O6 and that doesn't quite add up but.

to paraphrase Alex, aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggggggHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

(I think left-handed sugar causes left-handed diabetes..)

"According to this site ... it was too expensive to make and they couldn't get the stock price high enough to make it worth while."

Well, considering the effort my grandparents put into changing my father from left-handed to right-handed and how warped he is, they may well be right.

Remember;, any sugar that we can't metabolise, bacteria can. Thereby blows an ill wind.

But I think "Left-handed Sugar" would be a great name for a rock group.

"Left-handed Sugar" would be a great name for a rock group

You bin hanging with Dave Barry?

In re. Dave Barry- That may be the part of his column to which I have the greatest affinity. I'd been making up names for rock groups for years, maybe to compensate for my total lack of musical ability, and then started reading his column and found out he had the same obsession. I think my most promising one so far is "Brain Chemistry Rollercoaster", which originates in a remark I made once about my state of mind.

Then there was the time I was lying on the gurney in the ER writhing in pain with my back all tied up into knots and this petite young thang comes by pushing her little cart full of vials and needles and on her sweat shirt is embroidered the legend "Brain Eraser".

It's a rollercoaster at a local amusement park