What is the pH of water?

The Brisbane Courier Mail ran a lift-out in their newspaper promoting science week on Tuesday 2^nd August 2011, and, within that, they included a Science Quiz of 20 questions.
Question 13 (an ill omen perhaps?) was, "What is the pH value of water?"

Now this is the kind of question that stumps a lot of High School Chemistry students, and unfortunately, most of the Australian population. So it was with some trepidation that I ventured to see what answer the Courier Mail came up with, and was not at all surprised to find out they got it wrong. Their answer was, ofcourse, 7. Feeling quite strongly about the perpetration of this misconception, especially in an attempt to promote Science Week, I emailed them to explain why the pH of water cannot be said to be 7. Unfortunately my explanation must have been insufficient, or the misconecption just too strongly believed, because they then changed their answer to the equally incorrect "the pH of neutral water is 7".

The September 2011 issue of AUS-e-NEWS takes a look at the dissociation of water and indicators.
To subscribe to AUS-e-NEWS, AUS-e-TUTE's newsletter, email
using subscribe as the subject line.