But, it’s not. Alcohol is not a homogeneous mixture of two or more substances, nor a substance dissolved into another.
It’s its own chemical category of one or more hydroxyl groups bound to a saturated carbon atom.
It is a solvent but not a solution
Exactly. If you’re gonna make a chemistry joke, at least get it right.
Something like “Alcohol isn’t a solution, but it can be a solvent for the right problem” would be clever and true.
Hm… In german there’s not even a big difference between the words. One is ‘Lösungsmittel’ the other one is ‘Lösung’. So I think for us it works fine either way.
okay but ‘alcohol’ in its original meaning (alcoholic drink) is, right?
No, because the alcohol in a drink (ethanol) is still not a solution.
That’s not the original meaning either. The original meaning came from Arabic for a stibnite distillation used as eye liner. It came from Al-kuhl. It’s the same way that “spirit” came to mean a hard liquor. Distilling something down to its purest form was meant to harness the “spirit” of the thing.
A given spirit is a solution of alcohol and water, but alcohol itself is not. Which makes the whole “technically” part of the joke fall flat.
Liquor is a solution.
Finally fixed.
Wine and beer probably are too, but I feel like there’s an off chance that some varieties of beers (saisons come to mind) could be suspensions.
Yeah that would work to with the “technically”.
“Alcohol is not a solution, but liquor technically is.”
Technically, it’s a solvent.
But the pun is too good, so for the purpose of advancing interest in chemistry, I will let it pass.
Have an up vote.
Alcoholic drinks, commonly referred to as “alcohol”, are solutions, you pedant.
D’OH!
It’s not alcohol’s fault that English is a stupid language, I will comfort some alcohol later and reassure it.
Let’s watch people waste time on pedantic instead of just enjoying a quip
The best kind of correct
