ChemCordance: 15,000 Words Spelled by Chemical Elements

Everyone has seen a coffee mug with the word, "caffeine," spelled with chemical elements as Ca-F-Fe-I-Ne. If you're not a coffee drinker, you can find a tee-shirt emblazoned with a similar transliteration for chocolate, C-Ho-Co-La-Te. The symbols for the elements in the periodic table are the chemist's alphabet. Nearly every chemist can name the element associated with each symbol, except for the fleeting radioactive elements that occur at high atomic number. While not every word can be spelled solely using chemical elements, many can, sometimes in several different ways. ChemCordance presents the chemical spellings of words contained in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary ("Webster's Second"), a massive volume well loved by linguists. These "chemical words" are presented in a custom Periodic Table font designed by the author.