I completely agree with Quyen. One of the many definitions of freeze is "to make extremely cold". It is grammatically correct to say "freezing your crystals", especially since, as you point out, everyone reading it knows exactly what you did, and which definition of freeze you were referring too. It is completely unambiguous in my opinion, and it's how people normally talk about it. I wouldn't go into the lab and say "did you cryo-cool those crystals yet?" or "check out this nice crystal. Its ready for vitrification".
Best, Kendall On Nov 16, 2012, at 11:28 AM, Quyen Hoang <qqho...@gmail.com> wrote: > I enjoyed following this thread. Because English is not my first language, I > was hoping to learn the official definitions of these terms. > In my opinion, all the variations proposed so far are fine - I don't see > problems with using them. > > For me, when I see "flash frozen in liquid nitrogen" or "flash frozen in > nitrogen stream" I get unambiguous mental images of how the crystals were > prepared. When I hear a policeman yelling "freeze" while pointing a gun (no > personal experience here), there is no ambiguity that I should stop moving > (and won't get confused with cooling myself such that the water in my body > would form hexagonal ice). When I hear that a person is frozen by Parkinson's > disease, there is no ambiguity that his/her muscle had become rigid. > > I think that I will continue to use "flash frozen in liquid nitrogen" or > "flash frozen in nitrogen stream" and I hope that I would not need to explain > to reviewers what that means. > > Quyen > > > > On Nov 16, 2012, at 10:48 AM, Ganesh Natrajan <ganesh.natra...@ibs.fr> wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> Maybe we could just state the obvious, ie, that the crystals were >> 'Cryo-preserved' in liquid N2. >> >> >> Cheers >> >> Ganesh >> >> Le 16/11/12 16:27, Enrico Stura a écrit : >>> As a referee I also dislike the word "freezing" but only if improperly used: >>> "The crystals were frozen in LN2" is not acceptable because it is the >>> outside >>> liquor that is rapidly cooled to cryogenic temperatures. >>> >>> But the use of "freezing" used as the opposite of "melting" is fine and >>> does not >>> imply a crystalline state. Ice is not always crystalline either: >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorphous_ice >>> >>>
