Editing Oxygen (section)

====Etymology====
Lavoisier renamed "vital air" to {{tlit|grc|oxygène}} in 1777 from the [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] roots {{tlit|grc|oxys}} ({{lang|grc|ὀξύς}}; "[[acid]]", literally 'sharp', from the taste of acids) and {{tlit|grc|-genēs}} ({{lang|grc|-γενής}}; "producer", literally 'begetter'), because he mistakenly believed that oxygen was a constituent of all acids.<ref name="mellor">{{cite book|last1=Parks|first1=G. D.|last2=Mellor|first2=J. W.|date=1939|title=Mellor's Modern Inorganic Chemistry|edition=6th |publisher=Longmans, Green and Co.|location=London}}</ref> Chemists (such as Sir [[Humphry Davy]] in 1812) eventually determined that Lavoisier was wrong in this regard (e.g. [[Hydrogen chloride]] (HCl) is a strong acid that does not contain oxygen), but by then the name was too well established.<ref>{{Greenwood&Earnshaw2nd|page=793}}</ref>

''Oxygen'' entered the English language despite opposition by English scientists and the fact that the Englishman Priestley had first isolated the gas and written about it. This is partly due to a poem praising the gas titled "Oxygen" in the popular book ''[[The Botanic Garden]]'' (1791) by [[Erasmus Darwin]], grandfather of [[Charles Darwin]].<ref name="NBB300" />
{{clear}}