So far, we have talked a lot about compounds by name. Many of the names we’ve used (paly toxin, muscone, brevetoxin) are simple names given to complicated molecules without regard for the actual structure or function of the molecule—these three names, for example, are all derived from the name of the organism from which the compound was fi rst extracted.

They are known as trivial names, not because they are unimportant, but because they are used in everyday scientific conversation. Names like this are fi ne for familiar compounds that are widely used and referred to by chemists, biologists, doctors, nurses, and perfumers alike. But there are over 16 million known organic compounds. They can’t all have simple names, and no-one would remember them if they did. For this reason, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) have developed systematic nomenclature, a set of rules that allows any compound to be given a unique name that can be deduced directly from its chemical structure. Conversely, a chemical structure can be deduced from its systematic name. The problem with systematic names is that they tend to be grotesquely unpronounceable for anything but the most simple molecules. In everyday speech and writing, chemists therefore do tend to disregard them, and use a mixture of systematic and trivial names. Nonetheless, it’s important to know how the rules work. We shall look next at systematic nomenclature, before going on to look at the real language of chemistry.