Carbohydrates

It goes without saying that by strictly applying the rules of subtitutive nomenclature, all carbohydrates and their derivatives could readily and uniformly be named as polyhydroxyalkanals, -alkanones, -tetrahydrofurans, -tetrahydropyrans, -oxepanes, -alkanoic acids, etc. which would, however, require supplementing by a more or less extended set of stereodescriptors. It is precisely this last problem which in the specific framework of carbohydrate nomenclature has been solved in a distinctly different and certainly much clearer manner, in that numerous stereochemically unambiguously defined trivial and semitrivial names have been installed as cornerstones of the body of rules. The pertinent rule manual has recently been published in a thoroughly revised edition but its fundamental systematic features, as presented in the following paragraphs, should also be familiar to the non-specialist.