Talk:Titer
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Untitled
editThe page doesn't read properly and is in need of cleaning up. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Chesney16 (talk • contribs).
Vaccinations
editDoes "titer" also have another meaning in the realm of vaccinations? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 57.68.138.132 (talk • contribs).
Titer v. titre
editSo, from Google I get:
Titre: 236,000,000
Titer: 3,080,000
Why is this page titled titer? Chaosdruid (talk) 22:18, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
- What region did you use? France? With the region set to US, Google gives far more hits for "titer". With the region set to the UK, "titer" still leads. Google Ngrams shows that "titer" has at least double the results of "titre" since 1953, which appears to be when the Salk vaccine for polio was announced. It was developed in the US and first saw widespread use in the US. Even the British Medical Journal published articles with the non-British spelling, it seems. Although this is an old word, in a scientific context the multi-lingual and international scientific community seems to have gravitated toward the American spelling, possibly starting with a famous American vaccine. Although it seems the word was first used in French by a French chemist, and the only proper spelling in French is "titre". It means "title" and relates to the senses of "rank" and "pay grade". Some titration equipment still has obviously French names in English. Cuvette, burette.
- So long as "titre" redirects here, I think it is fine. The spelling convention in the title should match the article, that is the ultimate tie breaker in my opinion. Is the article written with Oxford Spelling? Let me see. 209.94.144.13 (talk) 20:41, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
- I only see one word with different spelling in the US versus the UK, aside from "titer" itself. The word is "recognizes" with a Z at the beginning of "antibody titer". Both spellings are mentioned in the lede section and changing to British spelling would require changing every single instance of the word "titer" (it appears a lot) and changing the Z to an S in "recognizes", and no words are already in Oxford spelling. So any petition to rename the article would most likely be voted down on those grounds alone. That said, thank you for prompting me to learn that "titre" comes from the French word for "title, rank, range, or grade", and that it is called "título" in Spanish - or "valoración", which makes a lot more sense honesty. Aside: This article contains a lot of uncited dubious statements, and the examples don't use powers of ten very often, which is possibly an oversight. In my experience, titer values as reported sometimes get rounded to a power of 10, similar to F-stop numbers on a camera. So you might have 1:1, then 1:2, then 1:4, then 1:8, then 1:15 (not 16), then 1:30, then 1:60, then 1:120, then 1:250 (not 240 nor 256). The possible values almost always include 1:1,000, even if the dilutions were all bifurcations. The inclusion of 1:256 in the lede section is clear for readers, but I have possibly never seen it reported that way. 209.94.144.13 (talk) 21:03, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
"highest dilution factor that still yields a positive reading"
editI'm not an expert in the field, but does the quotation above apply to all titrations or merely to antibody titrations in virology? The way it is placed in the article makes the quotation appear as though it is general to all titrations, though the sentence's citation is from Notes on medical virology. From my (limited) understanding, in a colorimetric titration of a solution of an analyte and an indicator, a titrant is added until the indicator changes color, thus reaching its endpoint. Would this be considered as "still yield[ing] a positive reading" instead of simply as reaching the titration's endpoint? The only sources in which I'm able to find wording similar to the above quotation all refer to its specific use in virology, e.g. "determine the maximum dilution at which the sample retains a specific activity" (Merriam-Webster definition 2), which is specifically in reference to antibodies in a blood sample.