Nomenclature of Acyclic Alkanes: Parent Name

I mentioned the IUPAC systematic nomenclature system before. I think I did, anyway. This project has been on hiatus for a while and I can't remember. But I'm back now! Really. I hope. Anyway, today we are going to learn how to name some alkanes. It's easy to do, and you need to know it to name other compounds. So learn it. I command you.

Let's start at the end. That's a good place to start, right? The last part of the name of any alkane is, get ready for this...

...it's "-ane." That should be quite easy to remember, even for you, because "alkane" itself ends in "-ane." If a compound is an alkane, its name ends in "-ane" and, conveniently enough, if a compound is not an alkane, its name will not end in "-ane." I know. Chemistry is so hard.

Next, we find the longest carbon chain. This is actually very easy, but teachers love trying to trick beginning students with odd drawings where they make part of the longest carbon chain look like a branch to people who are not paying attention. If this were a real chemistry class and I were the teacher (that would be bad), I would totally do this to you because I think it's hilarious. For now, I'll just give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are paying attention and can tell what the longest carbon chain in a molecule is.

Really? I shouldn't do that? Fine.
How long is the longest carbon chain? If you answered eight, congratulations, you did not fall for the dumbest trick in chemistry class. If you answered some other number, you were not paying attention or you cannot count or you're just a moron or something. I don't know. Shame on you anyway. You're bad (unless you got the right answer).

Once we know how long the longest chain is, we convert that into a numerical prefix, then attach it to our "-ane" suffix. Convert it into a numerical prefix? Yes, it's easy. No really. It is easy, just so long as you already know the Greek numerical prefixes—and use the Latin one for "nine" just to mess things up—and forget the first four prefixes and make up new special ones that are specific to chemistry. It was easy for me though! Here, I'll give you the first ten and we'll worry about going higher later.

1 = "meth"
2 = "eth"
3 = "prop"
4 = "but" (pronounced like the word "butte" just to confuse you even more)
5 = "pent"
6 = "hex"
7 = "hept"
8 = "oct"
9 = "non" (pronounced so that it rhymes with "tone" and not some other way)
10 = "dec"

Memorize them now. I command you. Done? Good. See, that wasn't so bad. Now, there's just one more tiny thing. Then we'll be all done and you'll know how to name acyclic alkanes. We have straight chains covered (unless they're longer than ten carbons long, but shut up). So a hydrocarbon that is a straight chain with five carbons would be "pentane" and one with nine would be "nonane" and so forth. Everything is fine, and then branches come and mess it all up. Not to worry: the IUPAC has an elaborate set of rules for us to denote where on a chain the branches lie and what the branches look like using prefixes and attaching them to the parent name (which simply describes the longest carbon chain. Well, it's elaborate enough that I'll save it for my next post, anyway. For now, just have the whole parent name part down.