‘Heavy metal’—time to move on from semantics to pragmatics?

Abstract

Despite the repeated calls to stop, most notably in a technical publication of the International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the use of the term ‘heavy metal’ appears not to have declined in the scientific literature and there is little evidence that the IUPAC instructions and those of other publications have had any measurable impact on this widespread usage. Indeed, the use of the term is increasing rather than declining. Four options are presented to solve this dilemma.