Do chemists refer to water as "dihydrogen monoxide"?
No, it's not. The &quot;dihydrogen monoxide&quot; name is used as part of a hoax. In the scientific community, there are chemical names for water, and which one is used in the literature generally depends on how it interacts with something else (hydroxic acid and hydrogen hydroxide were two I heard most often in acid-base reactions).
IUPAC, the standards committee that sets standard names for chemical structures, suggests &quot;oxidane&quot; as a starting point for the construction of other names for chemicals that are derived from water. However, they do not suggest &quot;oxidane&quot; itself be used to refer to plain water.
Most chemists would use &quot;water&quot;, even when writing scientific papers.