• Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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    2 days ago

    Americans know “paracetamol” about as well as you apparently know “acetaminophen”.

    They are the same compound.

    “Paracetamol” is the generic term used in Europe and Australia. “Acetaminophen” is the generic term commonly used in the Americas.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      Both are slightly less clunky words created from the corpse of “N-acetyl-para-aminophenol”

      “Acetaminophen” takes the “acet” from “acetyl” and “aminophen” from “aminophenol”.

      “Paracetamol” takes the “para” part, and then a few other random letters that don’t really make sence. “cet” from “acetyl”, and maybe “am” from the start of “amphenol” with the “ol” ending from the same word, ignoring that it ends in “nol”?

      • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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        21 hours ago

        Paracetamol" takes the “para” part, and then a few other random letters that don’t really make sence.

        Because it actually comes from a different chemical name for the same compound: para-acetylaminophenol

        • merc@sh.itjust.works
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          19 hours ago

          Whichever version you use, it doesn’t really make sense. The para part, sure. But “cetamol”? I guess you can can smush two of the words together and go from “para-acet” to “paracet”. But, the “amol” ending? It seems to be borrowing the “am” from amino, and the “ol” from the end. But, that’s a weird set of letters to borrow, and weird to not borrow the full “amin” from amino and not borrow the full “enol” from phenol.

    • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      Americans barely know ‘acetaminophen’ , too. Some, sure. Most know Tylenol.