[5.01/5.09] Organic Chemistry as a Second Language

Sometimes, I wonder why we teach organic nomenclature as if it were some sort of esoteric sub-discipline. It is a second language, one which is eminently rational, and mostly consistent - unlike English, for example.

Here is an HTML version of IUPAC's Recommendations on Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry(1979 & 1993). You have to admire the orderly manner in which this is handled. You don't really need a textbook or a teacher if you examine this ruthlessly to the end of each hierarchical sequence.

The only quibble I have is the use of the word 'recommendations'. IUPAC is the authority on pure and applied chemistry - whatever it says goes, and so it should not be 'recommendations', but 'directives' (or at weakest, 'guidelines'). It's a small quibble.