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?
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.
