The term "periplanar" was coined by Klyne and Prelog in 1960 to define a flexible torsional angle of 0 ± 30° (syn) or 180 ± 30° (anti). The prefix peri, derived from the Greek for "near", was chosen to make the meaning "approximately planar". However, the current common usage of syn and antiperiplanar is planar, which is incorrect. In the interests of proper language, we suggest that future authors instead use "syn-coplanar" and "anti-coplanar".
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Citation
Kane, Saul; Hersh, William H. J. Chem. Educ.2000 77 1366.
Keywords
Mechanisms; Nomenclature / Units / Symbols; Organic Chemistry; Stereochemistry; Textbooks; Writing in Chemistry
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