"zara" in
...

... a substance called DHMO (Dihydrogen Monoxide). ...
Your take on this will be helpful to the group.

My take on it is that people do not read as widely as they used to. If they
did, they wouldn't desire to coin unnecessary and clunkily literal jargon
like Dihydrogen Monoxide. (I'm not talking about the original author of
that posting, whenever it was, but of whoever introduced the phrase
"Dihydrogen Monoxide.")

Instead they'd use real jargon from older books, such as Hydrogen Protoxide.
Or more likely -- since it was 1800s -- Protoxide of Hydrogen. (IANMTU -- I
Am Not Making This Up).

That was one of the venerable, unique, glorious, and (alas, since IUPAC)
obsolete specialized chemical names in English. Others I remember from
Older Sources are Muriate of Potash, Corrosive Sublimate, Calomel, Realgar,
Orpiment, Sugar of Lead (with its suggestion of ancient Romans, their wines
in lead cups and, of course, their orgies). Aqua Regia (the famous acid
mixture -- would dissolve gold, I recall). Sesquicarbonates would vie with
Protoxides to balance the numbers of atoms per molecule. (Along with all
this came the inevitable conversion tables for the three old measure
systems: Avordupois, Apothecaries', and Troy. So many minims of this, so
many grains of that. Mix well.)

If you go back further to the Alchemists you have more theoretical structure
with its own jargon; Hermes Trismegistus and so on. But I'm quoting
relatively modern times -- late 1800s when a lot of basic chemistry was
already known, yet they still kept the cool names for things.

-- Max


--
"Pure Hydrogen has been often respired by different philosophers,
particularly by Scheele, Fontana, and the adventurous and unfortunate
Rosier." -- Humphry Davy, _Researches Chemical and Philosophical,_
Division 1, 1799.