On Thu, 13 May 2004 09:04:26 -0700, Larry Blanchard
posted:

In article ,
says...
Ditto! All I can say is that the presence of ions in solution, ionic
strength, does definitely affect how species in solution react. Maybe there
is some physical chemistry website or ng you can visit and ask this
question. I'd be interested to know, too!

Wow! I didn't mean to start such a learned discussion :-). My
knowledge of chemistry is limited to making various explosive
compounds, learned long ago in my juvenile days. And lately, I
think I've forgotten most of that - CRS seting in :-).

But what I meant by "ask a chemist" is that a friend of mine who
is a chemist said that the vinegar and salt combined to form a
weak hydrochloric acid. I took his word for it.


Yep it makes what might be regarded as a "weak" hydrochloric acid.
This doesn't mean "dilute" BTW.
And guess what? Acetic acid is "weak" so there is effectively no
difference on this count. If you could make acetic acid "strong" you
would have the equivalent of hydrochloric acid.
Strong and Weak wrt acids means that they dissociate forming the H+
and anions to a greater or lesser extent.