American Chemical Nomenclature

Abstract

Authors in American journals of chemical research are often permitted considerable latitude in the nomenclature that they use. Moreover, as the abstracts in Chemical Abstracts are written by very many different people, and because speed of publication is essential, rigid control of the nomenclature therein is not possible. Control is, however, rigid in the subject indexes, as indeed it must be if one substance is not to be indexed separately under two or more names. Thus, those seeking “official” American names or nomenclature methods should consult the subject index volumes of Chemical Abstracts and not the abstracts themselves. However, names used by authors are entered additionally in the indexes (to aid retrieval) unless grossly wrong, even if they are not the “official” American name; such entries are distinguished by asterisks.