Lexical Order

If you have shelved your thermodynamics at the back of your mind, go retrieve it. Done?

Δ_fH^O 

According to the order of appearance: change, formation, enthalpy, standard. 

But lo and behold, you are supposed to read that as: standard enthalpy change of formation. How can that be?

This is because English language adopts lexical order which does not really follow natural thinking process. First off, languages can be divided into two according to the lexical order: modifier-modified and modified-modifier. English belongs to the former, since the modifier precedes the modified. Consider the phrase:

beautiful girl

girl is the noun, the modified, while beautiful is an adjective, so it is an attribute, a modifier.

In Swahili, the same phrase would be (courtesy of Google Translate):

msichana mzuri (literally, girl beautiful, preserving the lexical order)

Note that now the modified precedes the modifier.

As English speakers we probably do not realise how unnatural is the English lexical order. If you think about it, the main idea must be the modified, while modifiers are just attributes. If we are talking about a 'beautiful girl', we are talking about a girl, not a beautiful.

Our mind is usually concerned with the bigger picture first, i.e. the modified; while details, the modifiers, can be filled later. Is there evidence that this is the natural way of thinking? We write symbols that way. Again, look at the same symbol of  'standard enthalpy of formation':

Δ_fH^O 

Note that the modified is change. The main modifier is enthalpy. Thus it is a change -- what kind of change? Enthalpy change. 

Other modifiers, formation and standard, appear as subscript or superscript. f subscript is appended after change because formation specifies the type of change. (Digressing a little bit: This is the new IUPAC convention. Last time, the f subscript used to be placed after the thermodynamic state function. This is not very accurate since, as mentioned, formation is the attribute of change rather than that of enthalpy. IUPAC actually pays attention to proper lexical order!). Nought superscript is more like the modifier to the whole thing, like thus: (Δ_fH)^O . 

Having said all that though, it languages do have ways to reverse lexical order. English uses 'of' to place modifier after the modified:

girl of unworldy beauty

While Japanese uses the familiar 'no' (の), which performs very similar functions to 'of'. This though, one must admit, is kind of unwieldy. The rendering of our symbol if the order of appearance is to be followed would be:

Change (of formation) of enthalpy, in standard conditions

There is an alternative argument to the 'unnatural' argument, which is to say that the modifier-modified languages put more importance, then, in the details rather than the big picture. Language and culture are intertwined, as I wrote quite lengthily before. Language is the frame on which thoughts are built upon, so its structure will influence the product of thoughts, i.e. culture, in some ways. We can extrapolate, say, that users of modified-modifier languages are more individualistic than they are socialistic, because they are more concerned with details. This conclusion is, of course, far-fetched. However, you may be surprised that there is actually correlation of sorts: A lot of Western languages are actually modifier-modified and the Western culture tends to be more individualistic. 

But then again, as I pointed out before, you have to be aware that indeed language influences culture, but the other way is also true; the two are intricately intertwined. Like nature and nurture. Ouroboros-like.