Dihydrogen monoxide parody

The dihydrogen monoxide parody involves calling water by an unfamiliar chemical name, most often "dihydrogen monoxide" (DHMO), and listing some of water's properties in a particularly alarming manner, such as accelerating corrosion (rust) and causing suffocation (drowning). The parody often calls for dihydrogen monoxide to be banned, regulated, or labeled as dangerous. It plays into chemophobia and demonstrates how a lack of scientific literacy and an exaggerated analysis can lead to misplaced fears. The parody has been used with other chemical names such as "hydrogen hydroxide", "dihydrogen oxide", "hydroxic acid", and "hydric acid".
History.
A 1983 April Fools' Day edition of the "Durand Express", a weekly newspaper in Durand, Michigan, reported that "dihydrogen oxide" had been found in the city's water pipes, and warned that it was fatal if inhaled, and could produce blistering vapors. The first appearance of the parody on the Internet was attributed by the "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" to the "Coalition to Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide", a parody organization at UC Santa Cruz following on-campus postings and newsgroup discussions in 1990.
This new version of the parody was created by housemates while attending the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1989–1990, revised by Craig Jackson in 1994, and brought to widespread public attention in 1997 when Nathan Zohner, a 14-year-old student, gathered petitions to ban "DHMO" as the basis of his science project, titled "How Gullible Are We?"
Jackson's original site included the following warning:
A mock material safety data sheet has also been created for H2O.
Molecular terminology and naming conventions.
The water molecule has the chemical formula H2O, meaning the molecule is composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Literally, the term "dihydrogen monoxide" means "two hydrogen, one oxygen": the prefix "di-" in "dihydrogen" means "two", the prefix "mono-" in "monoxide" means "one", and "oxide" designates oxygen in a compound (due to the two o's that would happen in 'monooxide' the o's are fused together to form monoxide).
Using chemical nomenclature, various names for water are in common use within the scientific community: "hydrogen oxide"; "hydrogen hydroxide", which characterises it as an alkali; and several designating it as an acid, such as "hydric acid", "hydroxic acid", "hydroxyl acid", "hydrohydroxic acid", and "hydroxilic acid". (The term used in the original text, "hydroxyl acid", is a non-standard name.)
Under the 2005 revisions of IUPAC nomenclature of inorganic chemistry, there is no single correct name for every compound. The primary function of chemical nomenclature is to ensure that each name refers, unambiguously, to a single substance. It is considered less important to ensure that each substance should have a single unambiguous name, although the number of acceptable names is limited. "Water" is one acceptable name for this compound, even though it is neither a systematic nor an international name and is specific to just one phase of the compound (its liquid form). The other IUPAC recommendation is "oxidane."