Kucera: Dictionary of Chemistry

Impressum

Antonin Kucera
Dictionary of Engineering Chemistry
Wörterbuch der Chemie

English-German, 1. Ausgabe, 1997

Der Inhalt dieser Datenbank ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Die dadurch begründeten Rechte, insbesondere die der Übersetzung, des Nachdrucks, der Funksendung, der Vervielfältigung auf photomechanischem oder elektronischem Wege, der Einspeicherung, Verbreitung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen (z.B. Datennetzen), der Veränderung, des Verleihs und der Vermietung bleiben, auch bei nur auszugsweiser Nutzung, vorbehalten.

Der Autor und der Verlag weisen dennoch ausdrücklich darauf hin, dass eine Gewähr für die Fehlerfreiheit und Vollständigkeit der Daten nicht übernommen werden kann.

In dem Wörterbuch werden, wie in allgemeinen Nachschlagewerken üblich, etwa bestehende Patente, Gebrauchsmuster und Warenzeichen nicht erwähnt. Wenn ein solcher Hinweis fehlt, heißt das also nicht, dass eine Ware oder ein Warenname frei ist.

Copyright Daten: Oscar Brandstetter Verlag GmbH & Co. KG  Postfach 1708, D-65007 Wiesbaden

More than 30 years ago, the outstanding pioneer in the field of specialized lexicography, Dr.-Ing. Richard Ernst (1900-1992), and his wife compiled an English-German and German-English chemical dictionary in two volumes published by O. Brandstetter Verlag. Both volumes have been out of print for a long time now.
In the meantime, chemical nomenclature has been revised, chemical research has moved on, the demands on the presentation of lexicographical data have increased (consistency, systematic coverage), and market conditions have also changed. When the Brandstetter publishing house approached the author more than three years ago about a single-volume German and English dictionary of chemistry with a maximum of 30000 entries in each language, the scope was defined within which the changes and developments mentioned above had to be accommodated.

The spelling of chemical terminology is laid down by international bodies, and German spelling now follows Anglo-American usage as far as possible, resulting for example in official German terms that are simple back-formations from the original root-word: Bismut <- Wismut <- Wesemut (date of the earliest recorded use in German: 1309). This unconventional approach has led to different spellings of the same word in German, depending on the subject: "zyklische Symmetrie" in power engineering according to DIN 13321 and "cyclische Verbindungen" in chemistry.
The second problem in this respect that commanded the author's attention, was the controversial German spelling reform now officially adopted by the German-speaking countries. The new rules set forth in the 21st edition of the DUDEN spelling dictionary are, however, of little assistance to lexicographers dealing with scientific and technical German, since they are not detailed enough to serve their needs. The situation is further aggravated by the fact that specialized literature based on the new rules is not yet available. Therefore, the spelling of a number of entries had to be determined by analogy. I let the user decide if the choice made has always been correct.

Had I not been able to benefit from my 46 years of experience in specialized lexicography and translation, I would have been unable to compile this dictionary. Currently, I am working on a large German-English technical and scientific dictionary with approximately 210000 entries scheduled for publication by Brandstetter in the near future. There is a certain relationship between the two dictionaries.
Mr. K.-H. Trojanus, Saarbrücken, read the proofs with painstaking accuracy and put his finger on every error or shortcoming that he found. Also, he carefully checked and amended the English and (new) German spelling.
Cooperation with Mr. U. Amm, reader at Brandstetter publishers, has been invaluable to me, for when I sit down in front of my computer, time begins to fly by, and before long I wonder what I have achieved. Mr. Amm has been so kind as to let me draw on his extensive computer knowledge for the benefit of this dictionary.

I have received valuable contributions for the English part from Mr. J.V. Drazil, a compatriot of mine, who now lives in Little Chalfont, U.K.
My profound gratitude is due to these three experts.
Some information has been provided by Professor A. Clas, Montreal, who will prepare the French version.
As I said at the beginning, I have been compiling specialized dictionaries for translators for 46 years now. Thinking along lexicographical lines has eventually put me in a singular frame of mind to the detriment of my wife, who has become a "dictionary widow", and my 12-year-old son Marc-Anton, a "dictionary orphan" by now. I should therefore like to take this opportunity to thank them for the support they have given me nevertheless.

D-65232 Taunusstein

July 1997 A. Kucera

The presentation of lexicographical data follows the principles adopted for my Compact dictionaries. Preference is given to standard British spelling. Part-of-speech labels are provided for both the German and English entries, as are irregular inflections where applicable. Additionally, the grammatical gender of the German nouns is shown.
For pragmatic reasons, a number of German compound entries in the German-English part that begin with an adjective, have been entered both under the first and second elements (exceptionally also under the third element). Thus, kaustische Soda appears both under K and S. I made this decision subjectively whenever I thought, as a result of personal experience, that the user might look for a term under both elements. When in doubt, I chose a restrictive approach to limit the size of the dictionary.

The E numbers refer to food additives in accordance with the Directive concerning the Use of Additives.
The attentive user will soon notice that the German terminology in this dictionary of chemistry has been influenced by the 9th edition of Römpp's Chemie Lexikon (Georg Thieme Verlag, 1989-1992 - see my review of this fundamental reference book in Lexicographica 6/1990) and by the 24-volume Brockhaus Enzyklopädie (1986-1994 - see my detailed review of this monumental encyclopaedia in Lexicographica 10/1994). I was, however, unable to take the 10th edition of Römpp (2 volumes so far) into consideration. Finally, I should like to draw the user's attention to the following works of reference:

Hesse-Meier-Zeeh: Spektroskopische Methoden in der organischen Chemie, 5. überarbeitete Auflage, Georg Thieme Verlag 1995
and
Untersuchungsmethoden in der Chemie, Einführung in die moderne Analytik, herausgegeben von H. Naumer und W. Heller, mit einem Geleitwort von Prof. Dr. R.L. Mößbauer, 3., erweiterte und neubearbeitete Auflage, Georg Thieme Verlag 1997.