The following pages are dedicated to English words that can be spelled using chemical symbols. Since the list of chemical symbols is changing every few years, I need to make it clear that these lists are good through 12/31/05, and include all elements through element 111, Roentgenium (Rg), which was named on November 1st, 2004.
Who might be interested in this page? Anyone who loves chemistry, certainly. High school teachers could use these words to increase the interest in the subject. How about English lovers who want ONe SUPEr ScHoLaSTiC PrOCeSS ThAt He/SHe CaN USe In ClAsS?
Or what about chemistry teachers trying to help student learn their chemical
symbols (Question: Picasso pioneered what short-lived but influential form
of art? Answer: Copper, Bismuth, Samarium).
But HOW should there exist a list of words that can be spelled with chemical symbols?
I mean, what would possess a person to do such a thing? Well, that's a perfectly good question, and the answer relies on the way my brain can't stop humming down a certain track once it gets going. You see, there's the NPR puzzle show on Sunday mornings. I never hear it because I'm at church, but someone sent me the following (paraphrased) puzzle: can you find a 3x3 matrix of chemical symbols such that all 9 symbols are different and that the three rows and three columns all spell out English words?
Well, to tackle this problem I first needed to know which English words can be spelled with distinct chemical symbols. THAT'S why these pages are here (I found hundreds of such matrices by hand, by the way, until I got wise and used Mathematica to find
tens of thousands more).
I should note, before I go on, that I am using the ENABLE dictionary as my source for English words. ENABLE is essentially based on the concept that if you can use it in Scrabble, you can find it in their dictionary. Plus, you can find words longer than 8-9 letters long. Essentially, ENABLE is based on Merriam Webster's 10th edition and it is the gold-standard of word puzzle makers and solvers everywhere.
So what does that mean? Words that must be capitalized, like "Ireland," are not allowed, and neither are acronyms, like "N.R.A.," unless they have come into the vernacular as words, such as "laser." Archaic words, like "thir" (a Middle-English pronoun) are allowed, as are abbreviations that have become full-fledged words in their own right, such as "repo." Those two words, spelled with chemical symbols, are ThIr and either RePO or RePo, by the way.
Now, there ARE words that are not on the ENABLE word list, though I don't know
why: for instance, "inasmuch" is absent. To keep the list
organized and regulated, I decided to keep all of the words in ENABLE in the
normal lists, alphabetized; those words not in ENABLE come after the main lists. If
you find any words that are not in the lists, please let me know! Also,
clearly, as new element names and symbols become official, and as new words are
added to the English language, these lists will change. I will try to keep
them updated, but....
As a last note, it took me about 2800 computing hours on three computers to come up with all of this (parsed among three computers), not to mention the
couple hours it took to program everything correctly so that it didn't take the
billions of universe-ages it might take with a straight search. I'm sure it
could be done more quickly with a better program, but 1) I enjoy procedural
programming and I'm too lazy to learn functional programming, 2) I don't see how
to do the word squares functionally, and 3) I'm VERY patient.
The word lists, while the main focus of these pages, were actually simple on
their own and took almost no time, comparatively - more than 99% of the time was
spent running the 4x4, 5x5, 6x6, and 7x7 word square searches. If you use this page in your classroom, &c., please reference me! Also, if you like these pages or have anything you think should be added, drop me a line: nandor@wellington.org
Interesting Facts:
The longest word you can spell with chemical symbols is
"nonrepresentationalisms," which can be spelled four different ways with
symbols, one of which is "NoNRePReSeNTaTiONaLiSmS." There is a tie for
longest words if only unique chemical symbols may be used: "hypercoagulabilities"
and "hyperconsciousnesses" ("HYPErCoAgULaBiLiTiEs" and "HYPErCoNScIOUSnEsSeS").
The longest obscure word (not in ENABLE) is "hypothalamicohypophyseal," which
can be spelled 8 different ways with chemical symbols.
The first word alphabetically is "acacias" ("AcAcIAs"), a type of shrub, and the
last word alphabetically is "ywis" ("YWIS"), a Middle-English way of saying
"certainly."
The only elements that can be spelled using chemical symbols are:
arsenic
ArSeNiC, ArSeNIC
astatine
AsTaTiNe
bismuth
BiSmUTh, BISmUTh
carbon
CaRbON, CArBON
copper
CoPPEr, COPPEr
iron
IrON
krypton
KrYPtON
neon
NeON
phosphorus
PHOsPHoRuS, PHoSPHoRuS, PHOSPHoRus,
PHOsPHORuS, PHoSPHORuS, PHOSPHORuS
silicon
SiLiCoN, SILiCoN, SiLiCON, SILiCON
tin
TiN
xenon
XeNoN, XeNON
Note that the only elements that require the use of repeated chemical symbols
are copper and phosphorus. And that copper, iron, and tin cannot be
spelled with their own chemical symbol.
Exhaustive Word Lists:
1. A list of all English words (26,811 of them) that can be spelled with chemical symbols.
[List] [Table]
1a. A list of all of the spellings of those words (56,407 ways). [List]
[Table]
2. A list of all English words (19,789 of them) that can be spelled with distinct chemical symbols
(so "papa" is not allowed since it would take a repeat of Pa to spell it).
[List] [Table]
2a. A list of all of the spellings of those words (30,564 ways). [List]
[Table]
3. A list of all spellings of English words (1510 of them) that can be
spelled solely using one-character chemical symbols. [List] [Table]
4. A list of all spellings of English words(1537 of them) that can be
spelled solely using two-character chemical symbols. [List]
[Table]
5. A list of all spellings of English words (608 of them) that can be
spelled solely using distinct one-character chemical symbols (so "bib" is not
allowed since it would take a repeat of B to spell it). [List]
[Table]
6. A list of all spellings of English words(1452 of them) that can be
spelled solely using distinct two-character chemical symbols (so "papa" is not
allowed since it would take a repeat of Pa to spell it). [List]
[Table]
Chemical Word Squares:
3. Download a list of the 6007 2x2 chemical word squares (each row and each column is a word).
[.pdf] [.doc]
3a. Download a list of the 293 2x2 magic chemical word squares (each row, each column, and each diagonal from left to right is a word).
[.pdf] [.doc]
4. Download a list (2315-page document!) of the 74,054 3x3 chemical word squares (each row and each column is a word).
[.pdf] [.doc]
4a. Download a list of the 408 3x3 magic chemical word squares (each row, each column, and each diagonal from left to right is a word).
[.pdf] [.doc]
5. Download a list of the 12 4x4 chemical word squares (each row and each column is a word).
[.pdf] [.doc]
Unfortunately, there are no 4x4 magic chemical words squares, and no 5x5 or
higher chemical word squares at all. The closest I could come to a 5x5 chemical
word square is 4 words across and 3 words down. One such example is:
Sc
Am
Mo
N
Y
Ar
B
O
Re
Al
F
U
Ni
Cl
Es
P
La
S
Ti
C
In
Te
H
Incidentally, there is only ONE 3x3 chemical word square composed entirely of 2-character chemical symbols, and only ONE 3x3 chemical word square composed entirely of 1-character symbols:
At some point I will also look into downloading the millions-long list of
all known chemicals to see which of the chemical words are also actual
chemicals/compounds. If anyone out there has a membership to Chemical
Abstracts and can download and send me that list in electronic form, it would be
appreciated!