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Numerical suffixes - How to use them

From:Andrew Patterson <endipatterson@...>
Date:Sunday, November 21, 2004, 21:47
At one time chemistry almost invented a system of numerical suffixes to
refer to oxygen states, we would have ferric and ferous ions and cuprous
and cupric ions. The system actually refered to more and less oxidised
states and the actual oxidation state of any given suffix varied according
to which ion it referrred to. The system has now been superseeded by roman
numerals in brackets.

I like the idea of numerical suffixes, however, and thought I'd see if I
could come up with something. Using adjectival, and adjective-like noun
suffixes in English, and using a duodecimal counting system, I came up with
this:

1 -al         4 -ite      7 -ian      T -den
2 -ic         5 -ive      8 -ant      E -ile
3 -ous        6 -ilar     9 -ine      0 -ium

From here larger numbers can be made by piling up the suffixes:

one dozen        -alium
dozen & one      -alal
dozen & two      -alic
dozen & three    -alous, etc

two dozen        -icium
two dozen & one  -ical
two dozen & two  -icic
two dozen & four -icite
two dozen & ten  -icden

As I said before, this could be used to show chemical oxidation states. It
could also be used to form numerical adjectives with "erg"=power:

Twelve^3 = ergous
Twelve^6 = ergilar
Twelve^9 = ergine
Twelve^twelve = ergalium, etc.

These might replace SI prefixes kilo, Mega, Tera, etc.

I also thought of using -less for 0.

Can anyone think of any other uses for numerical suffixes?

Reply

H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...>