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Digression: a drinking-song for chemists

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Sam Conway

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Feb 15, 1990, 4:33:22 PM2/15/90
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(the tune is "The Irish Washerwoman", and must be sung very fast after a
prolonged infusion of aqueous ethanol.)

Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde
Sodium citrate, ammonium cyanide
Mix'em together, and then add some benzene
And top off the punch with trichloroethylene!

Got gassed up last night on some furfuryl alcohol,
Followed it up with a gallon of propanol.
Tanked up on hydrazine 'till afternoon,
Then spat on the floor and blew up the saloon!

Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde
Powdered aluminum, nitrogen iodide,
Chlorates, permanganates, nitrates galore!
Just swallow one drink, and you'll never need more!

Whiskey, Tequila, and rum are too tame.
No, the stuff that I drink must explode into flame
When I breathe and dissolve all the paint in the room
And rattle the walls with a ground-shaking boom!

Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde
Go soak your head in a good strong insecticide.
Slosh it around and impregnate your brain
With dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane!


(author unknown)

(Don't you feel like that sometimes after 14 hours in the lab?)


--
Sam Conway *
dra...@eleazar.dartmouth.edu * Don't mention the war!
Chemistry Dept., Dartmouth College, NH * I mentioned it once, but I
Vermont Raptor Center (VINS) * think I got away with it...

Mike Van Pelt

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Feb 17, 1990, 3:49:45 AM2/17/90
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In article <19...@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> dra...@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Sam Conway) writes:
[ Hilarious song deleted ]
>(author unknown)

I don't know who wrote it (I'd love to find out) but I bet it
was inspired by Isaac Asimov. In his book "Adding a Dimension",
a collection of his science articles from "Fantasy and Science
Fiction", was an article about the naming of chemical compounds.
In it he told how he needed some paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde
for a glucosamine test, asked for it at the reagent shelf, and
the person he asked startled him by singing it to the tune of
"The Irish Washerwoman":

I was haunted for weeks by those drumming dactylic feet.
PA-ruh-dy-METH-il-a-MEE-noh-ben-ZAL-duh-hide-PA-ruh-dy-METH-
il-a-MEE-noh-ben-ZAL-duh-hide -- went my brain over and over.
It scrambled my thoughts, interfered with my sleep, and reduced
me to semimadness, for I would go about muttering it savagely
under my breath to the alarm of all innocent bystanders.

Finally, the whole thing was exorcised ... I was standing at
the desk of a ... very pretty Irish receptionist ... stirred
that drumbeat memory in my mind, so that I sang in a soft voice
(without even realizing what I was doing) PA-ruh-dy-METH-il-a-
MEE-noh-ben-ZAL-duh-hide ... through several rapid choruses.

And the receptionist clapped her hands together in delight and
cried out "Oh, my, you know it in the original Gaelic!"

What could I do? I smiled modestly and had her announce me as
Isaac O'Asimov.

--
"It was more dangerous to drive Mike Van Pelt
away from Three Mile Island than Headland Technology/Video 7
to stay there." -- Dr. Bruce Ames. ...ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp

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