Splenda exists because a postdoc misheard one word in the lab.
London, 1975. Chemist Leslie Hough had his lab chlorinating sugar, with insecticides among the uses on the table. A freshly made batch was wanted for testing, and word went to his postdoc, Shashikant Phadnis. Phadnis heard “taste,” not “test,” and licked the compound. It was shockingly, impossibly sweet. That slip became sucralose, the molecule inside every yellow packet of Splenda.
Splenda on Brandseum