When you get prescription medication, there are often at least three names associated with it. One is the scientific word for the compound. This is normally longer and composed of the official IUPAC-sanctioned chemical prefixes and suffixes. Then there's the name of the active ingredient, which has to be approved by national regulatory bodies. This is a shorter words with a suffix that has to meet naming standards, with each suffix corresponding to a structure and function so pharmacists don't get confuse and make lethal mistakes. The preceding syllables, however, are entirely up to producer's choice, as is the third type of designation: the commercial name. This is not subject to regulation, and is extremely important to the companies, because it needs to be memorable so people pay higher prices for the name brand once the patent expires. Let's look at an often-cited example: Prozac. Its name was arbitrarily invented in the 1980s, its active ingredient is fluoxetine, and its full name is (RS)-N-methyl-3-phenyl-3-[4-(trifluoromethyl)phenoxy]propan-1-amine. I think that's pretty interesting.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AUTHORHello! I'm Adam Aleksic. This year, I graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Government and Linguistics. There, I co-founded the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society and wrote a thesis on Serbo-Croatian language policy, magna cum laude. In addition to etymology, I also really enjoy trivia, politics, vexillology, geography, board games, conlanging, art history, and law.
Archives
May 2022
TAGS |