Saturday, November 30, 2013

The Big O

Tell us about a time you found out after the fact that you’d been mistaken and you had to eat a serving of humble pie.

Today, I was discussing this writing prompt with Hubby, hoping he would give me a good idea of something to write about.  I was not disappointed.  We were having the discussion while driving in the car, and Hubby got distracted by a dental office where the dentist's name was Dr. Chips.  He then told me that this sounded like a knock off version of Pringles.  After a moment, he admitted that he would eat knock off Pringles called Dr. Chips.  I told him they would probably be filled with chemicals.  He said all food was filled with chemicals.  I emphatically disagreed with him.

He contended that everything is full of chemicals, because everything is made up of molecules, which are made up of elements.  And elements are chemicals.  I contended that pure elements were not chemicals, and that things like water and oxygen were not considered chemicals.  Chemicals were synthetic things, not things naturally occurring in nature.  I told him there was no way oxygen could be considered a chemical.  And I told him if I was wrong, it would be the subject of today's post.

Guess what I was?
Wrong

From everything we have been able to find, the word "chemical" can accurately be used to describe
A substance with a distinct molecular composition that is produced by or used in a chemical process.
 Based on that definition, elements, such as oxygen and hydrogen, would, in fact be considered a chemical.  As would water.  Hubby is still convinced that I am, in fact wrong (of course he told me he could never remember an instance when I was wrong, God bless him), because all the websites we looked at used phrases such as "chemical element" or ""chemical substances" to describe elements.  To me, this seems kind of a matter of semantics, but I am still willing to admit I was wrong.

NaBloPoMo November