Check out http://www.dhmo.org/
after I figured out what Dihydrogen Monoxide really is I could hardly hold my laughter.
HA!’
Nuff Said, that’s a killer!
Frequently Asked Questions About Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO)
What is Dihydrogen Monoxide?
Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) is a colorless and odorless chemical compound, also referred to by some as Dihydrogen Oxide, Hydrogen Hydroxide, Hydronium Hydroxide, or simply Hydric acid. Its basis is the unstable radical Hydroxide, the components of which are found in a number of caustic, explosive and poisonous compounds such as Sulfuric Acid, Nitroglycerine and Ethyl Alcohol.
Doesn’t seem funny. Is it caused by bat guano or something?
This is hilarious. The worst part is that most people I would tell to look at this website would never get it…
Fanny May,
Dihydrogen monoxide = H2O
*Aaarhh… knife… in… gut… * Please, Please, help me, as only devout straight dopers can!
I think I may have originated the longstanding DMSO joke. I certainly can document that I published it 23 years ago. However, I can’t prove that I was the first. maybe there was a lot of spontaneous independent evolution going on. If so, I’d be cool with that, but every time I’ve seen it making the rounds in the past 20+ years, it’s been like a knife in my gut. Can anyone help me to prove that I am or am not the originator?
I just need to know.
In 1977, I, without any outside prompting or inspiration wrote an article on DHMO. It was soon published in a friend of mine’s APA (Amateur Press Association) 'zine (under my name) and also spread (by me and my friends) around MIT, at various high school academic competitions (Junior Classical League, Math Meets, Earth Day, Educational Studies Program, etc.), and science fiction fan events (Boskone, various relaxacons]
APA zines are widely traded/circulated (the sociology was not unlike the modern internet chat group), and many collections were archived (I have a couple of original copies around here, too)
There have been numerous elements in the DMSO parodies that are so similar that suggest a common origin. (e.g. there were punchlines (‘risks’) I decided to leave out, but none of these show up in ‘other’ DMSO jokes, as one would expect under independent evolution) I can even tell you why it’s DHMO and not DHM or DMO: I was deliberately mimicking DMSO (DiMethyl SulfOxide), an industrial solvent, approved for veterinary use, that had gotten some interesting airplay on 60 Minutes, etc, and even prompted the founder of The Dreyfus Fund (the most famous mutual fund of the era) to write and independently publish book called “Mr. President, an important Drug is being overlooked” protesting FDA findings.
DMSO was supposed to have a host of curative properties for cancer, arthritis, etc. It also had an interesting property that was scientifically verifiable: it could penetrate the skin and enter the blood stream (you could taste its ‘oyster-like’ flavor in your mouth in minutes)
I’d really appreciate the help. It’s been bugging me for a long time. This is a classic problem for SD’ers to prove or debunk. (Too bad Cecil wouldn’t be interested!)
I just looked at the site in question.
It’s truly well done, and takes things far beyond anything I ever did. Mine was intended to parody an alarmist article or pamphlet. I don;t mean to take away from the tremendous achievement of this website.
However, the first time I saw it in the web (94-95, by some roomates in California) it was substantially similar to what I had written – the form that I’d seen as xerox-ware for almost two decades
I think this thread should be diavowed before it starts a general panic. The public must not know the truth about
Dihydrogen Monoxide until enough shelters can be built.
I thought that we paid rent or mortgages to have shelters from the stuff.
I had sent that article to some people whom I hoped would panic, them having gotten better grades in chemistry than I. Revenge, I guess. One person congratulated me on passing the first TRUE internet rumor she had ever seen. Because it is true, every word of it. DHMO is dangerous stuff. And I have no reason to doubt KP’s claims of origin. I first saw variations on it many, many moons ago.
I love urban and net legends. They’re like Anthropology except you can laugh at the suckers who believe it! Also like Anthropology, but that’s another thread.
Hey, KP, don’t be ashamed/afraid/whatever. I personally think that the DHMO publicity actually helps the cause of science. It doesn’t do any harm, as it seldom spreads far without someone breaking out in laughter and giving it away. On the contrary, I think that it might make people a little more wary of alarmist panicmongering on other substances. If they realize that DHMO is a common industrial solvant, etc., then they might not panic over some of these other issues.
On a completely unrelated note, I’ve always preferred the term “hydroxic acid”-- it IS the primary component of acid rain, you know.
I was going to exclaim in (mock) alarm that I had been using the stuff as a household solvent for years and never knew!
(Grumblegrumble…)
–Baloo
Here’s another page on the same stuff. http://www.lrsm.upenn.edu/~sherman/humor/water.html
It is really more widespread than I thought! 
More than you know…
A few years back, in one of the midwest states (in the US, for you wonderfully wacky privileged people who don’t live here), a junior high school student used this same thing as a project for his social studies class.
He tried to get people to sign a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide, listing the horrible things it can do (kill you if it’s inhaled, for instance). Of fifty people to sign the petition, 46 wanted to ban the chemical, 2 people didn’t want to ban the chemical, and 2 people weren’t sure.
The name of his project?
“How gullible are we?”
This was a test question in one of my college chemistry classes! The instructor thought it was a pretty good way to see if we were actually learning anything. Seriously - it was a 10 point essay question!
What was really hilarious was listening to the students who didn’t get it discuss their answers after the test!
I e-mailed the article out a couple of months ago to a few friends. I uh… “neglected”… to mention it was a joke, figuring my friends were intelligent enough to figure it out. A few weeks later I received this e-mail:
I was kinda hoping someone would write a senator. 
Hehe. Someone posts either the joke or the link around here once a month or so… but it still makes me chuckle.