Simple question about vinegar

[CRbomber650]

Is vinegar acetic acid or ethanoic acid? My teacher said it was ascetic acid, but I took an online quiz saying that the name for was ethanoic acid. I am inclined to trust my teacher on this one, but the quiz is creating some minor doubts.

[Abstract]

Both are correct. 😉

Technically, ethanoic acid is the proper nomenclature, but the term "acetic acid" is much more commonly used.

[MrMistery]

ethanoic acid is the given to the substance by IUPAC(International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry). Acetic acid is it’s common name.

[Mjhavok]

Ethanoic acid would be more its name as given by chemists and acetic acid is what I think is called the trivial name or commonly used name.

For instance most enzymes now end is -ase, but when we first started naming enzymes we needed have a system and named them things like pepsin or trypsin.

In point both are names of the same acid.

[Author]

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