alumin(i)um

[Bob Sneidar]

Excerpt from WordOrigins.org: 

In 1808, British chemist Humphry Davy postulated the existence of a metallic form of alumina ore, which he dubbed alumium. 

Davy later changed the name to aluminum. He writes in his 1812 Elements of Chemical Philosophy: "As yet Aluminum has not been obtained in a perfectly free state."

Yet that same year, other British chemists settled on the name aluminium, the ending of which they thought was more consistent with the other elements. 

So the theoretical substance was dubbed Aluminum first, but other scientists decided to call it Aluminium, even though no one knew if it existed or could exist yet. 

Bob S



> On Sep 6, 2022, at 13:38 , Mark Wieder via use-livecode <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> 
> On 9/6/22 13:19, Mike Kerner via use-livecode wrote:
> 
>> or the way they spell "favourites", or pronounce "Aluminum". Do you see an
>> extra "i" in there? No? It's invisible, that's why.
> 
> Yeah. About that.
> The "aluminium" version actually preceded "aluminum" by several years, so if anything the U.S. version is actually the weird one. There are very few other elements that veer from the standard "ium" suffix into just "um": molybdenum, lanthanum,, tantalum, platinum, and all of those are transition metals.
> 
> https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/aluminum-vs-aluminium
> 
> -- 
> Mark Wieder
> ahsoftware at gmail.com