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37 points

one is food for animals, the other is food for cars

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13 points

Yes, but which is which? Nothing in the name tells me whether it has oxygen in its chemical composition.

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10 points

Well, you might’ve heard foods with carbohydrates are sometimes referred to by the abbreviation “carbs". If you know carbs are food, it’s obvious the word starting in “carb-” is the edible one.

If you weren’t familiar with that abbreviation, here’s another memory helper: Spaghetti carbonara contains carbs.

If you’re also not familiar with spaghetti carbonara, I’m very sorry for you.

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17 points

But spaghetti also needs water so wouldn’t that make it a hydrocarbonara?

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3 points

Don’t cars have carborators? Are carborators edible?

I don’t know anything about cars except they go vroom. I know even less about chemistry.

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6 points
*

Carbohydrates are the ones with (H20)n

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6 points

To hydrate means to add water. Hence a hydrate has OH2 added.

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1 point

Oooohhhh, nice!

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1 point

More generally, -ate itself means ‘with oxygen’.

Carbonate = carbon + oxygen

Nitrate = nitrogen + oxygen

Phosphate = phosphorus + oxygen

There is apparently some nuance but it is a good rule to remember: https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/32962/when-to-use-ate-and-ite-for-naming-oxyanions

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