In the June 23, 2003 issue of Chemical & Engineering News, K.M. Reese, Newscripts Editor, surprised me by actually publishing excerpts from a letter written on a whim to C&E News. This letter involved a few examples of funny sentences I have seen in reading mostly student written laboratory and research reports, focusing on the negative powers of the spellchecker. Some of the sentences documented on this site are clearly errors arising from the spellcheck feature. Others are just poorly written sentences, and some probably reflect a lack of understanding of a chemical concept or two. I will attempt to categorize them here, though sometimes it is hard to know how the author actually ended up with the sentence as composed.

If you have funny sentences that you would like included, please send them to me (jpblitz@eiu.edu) and I will post them. You will see below that a few people have sent in some noteworthy contributions.

STUDENTS: if you don’t think it is worth the time and admittedly considerable effort to write well, read on. Perhaps one of your sentences can be or has been included?

Sentences inspired by the spellchecker

We then quantitatively transferred solutions to 250-mL volumetric flasks and diluted to volume with demonized water.

Once again solutions were boiled while being swilled…

...the sample was titillated with 0.1N NaOH...

-Pat Metzger – who also writes while previous versions of Word altered titrate to titillate, the current version alters titrate to triturate. I personally think that this is a step in the wrong direction. It is no more correct and a lot less funny!

The authors gratefully acknowledge the services provided by harlot puckered

-Karl Schroeder, DOE. The spellcheck changed the above from Hewlett Packard.

Treatment of the baldhead with Tollen’s reagent gave a silver mirror.

-Chris Dockery, University of South Carolina. In the interest of full disclosure this sentence was written here, however Chris reports that a spellchecker can flag aldehyde and change it to baldhead or baldheaded.

Pt Complex (1.4 µmol) and Q7 or Q8 (1.4 µmol) were dissolved in 2 mL H₂O, fornicated to ensure full dissolution, and freeze dried.

-Lt. Mark Bali, Australian Defence Force Academy. The spellchecker believed, and many would agree, that fornication is preferable to sonication.

Other sentences for the ages

Next, the burner was lit on fire and the solution in the 500mL flask was brought to a gentle boil for twenty minutes.

It is likely that some of the liquid was absorbed by the quark.

-Rebecca Peebles, Eastern Illinois University. It is assumed that this is a misspelling for cork.

My colleague Bob Chesnut at Eastern Illinois University contributed a multitude of gems which follow:

"The experiment was carried out without incidence."

"Through a series of reactions, this experiment changes a halogen (cyclohexane) to a free radical."

"After being cooled to room temperature, the mixture was added to 50 mL of ice water, producing two faces."

"The experimental yield in this experiment was close to the theological yield, but the purity might not be as high as it should be."

"A reduction of external pressure tends to higher the boiling point.  An increase in external pressure lowers the boiling point.  This is illustrated when an evacuated Erlenmeyer full of H₂O boils at room temperature.  Here the pressure is increased."

"The purpose of this experiment is to detect the constituents of an unknown solution.  This lab also affiliates one with qualitative testing techniques."

"The condensed vapors were scraped off the watch glass, and the mp was determined to be 110 - 125 C."

"The synthesis was successful.  The conformation of this conclusion is the NMR spectrum of the product and its melting point."

"Once dissolved, the flask was removed from heat and allowed to cool to room temperature."

"Finally, to complete the experiment, the product was sent through NMR and Inferred spectrometers to obtain graphs to aid in analyzing."

"The procedure I used wouldn't solidify completely."

"The integration shows that there are two hydrogens on one carbon.  Perhaps the same signal peaked at the same frequency and field strength, thus causing that perceived integration mishap."