In America, a chemist is someone who works with chemicals, either in a research setting or in industry; an American chemist is generally not involved in medicine, and if they are it’s because they’re either biochemists studying the chemistry of living things or working for a pharmaceutical concern that manufactures medicines (and they may be considered biochemists too, for all I know).
The person who fills prescriptions for patients and advises on drug interactions is a pharmacist, who works in a pharmacy. (As if you didn’t know that already.)
So, how do Brits disambiguate the people Americans refer to as chemists from the people Americans refer to as pharmacists? Does any other branch of Commonwealth English do the same thing?
Usually disambiguated by context, although there is room for confusion. I’d say that pharmacist is used as much in the UK as chemist these days, certainly the profession call themselves pharmacists rather than chemists.
In Australia the person is referred to as a ‘pharmacist’. As for the shop - I’d guess that people are more likely to speak of “going to the chemist’s for a prescription” than "going to the pharmacy/pharmacist’s for a prescription. I certainly tend to use the terms interchangebly for the shop. But not for the person.
There is still a pretty distinct dividing line between synthetic chemists in the pharmaceutical industry and biochemists. There is knowledge that crosses the line easily, but the parent fields are different enough that one can’t really be considered the other.
And vice versa. Sometimes words on both sides of the Atlantic get trapped in time. In New England, there are plenty of pharmacies called ‘Apothecary’. It is supposed to be an long obsolete word but it isn’t because of British history in New England. Do they even use the word apothecary in real England or anywhere else?
I vaguely recall seeing the signage up in the UK, but it was a rarity and it seemed that they were rather old establishments.
As for out of date English v American English, not here. I hung with a bunch of Brits while I was deployed to the middle east and had down time in Qatar. I became fluent in English AND have always been fluent in American.
The most asked question was what a federal offense was and what would it be if it wasn’t federal. Remember, everything is the Crown… I had to explain, to an incredulous audience, what sovereign states were in relation to our federal government…
So, while their legal system leaves me with a migraine, OUR entire system of government leaves them flummoxed.
Another Brit: I would call the shop a chemist’s or a pharmacy interchangably, probably depending on what the shop calls itself. I have never myself seen an “apothecary” in the UK, although similar terms are used in many other European countires.
My impression is that the term “pharmacy” is becoming more common at the expense of “chemist”. The drug-dispensing shops-within-shops that are now often found in large supermarkets are always called pharmacies, in my experience.
I would call the person who works at such an establishment a pharmacist rather than a chemist. If someone said to me “she’s a chemist” without any other context, I would not be sure which type of chemist they meant.
There is a really nice bar/restaurant just near where I work called the Apothecary.
I remember a very (100 year) old cartoon from the UK magazine Punch (which sadly died 20 years ago.)
An older gentleman was talking to a young boy about careers.
“What profession do you have in mind for your future?”
“I want to become a chemist.”
“Ah, what sort, analytical or dispensing?”
The boy, very firmly, “Cash!”
No, but the stores brand themselves simply as “Boots”, not “Boots the Chemist”. And in Boots franchises where there is a pharmacy present, the signs outside and inside the store will say “Pharmacy”, not “Chemist”.
I live in Britain and I’ve never seen a real pharmacy call itself an apothecary. The term is used in the business name of some stores which you might in the US call “drug stores” (that is, selling cosmetics, vitamins, health supplements, over-the-counter medications, etc., but without a prescription counter). For example, there’s the Space NK Apothecary.
We have a few Apothecary labelled stores still, usually older independent ones. Otherwise they are all pharmacies or drug stores. I don’t recall ever seeing “chemist” other than in a British context.
