It's now "aluminium"

[Athleticsimaging]

Re: Priorities

The Americans found/named the element first, called it "aluminum."

Absolutely wrong, yet constantly repeated for some bizarre reason. Sir Humphry Davey proposed Aluminum in the early 19th century as the name of the element but this was not accepted by IUPAC at that time and which decided on Aluminium to bring it into alignment with the standard naming convention. This was accepted everywhere as the standard usage, including in the US, until 1925 when the American Chemical Society reverted to the use of Aluminum. So the US didn't discover or name it but they did manage to get it wrong in 1925. That's something to be proud of I suppose....

Next up for renaming Strontum, Polonum, Uranum, Plutonum, Hafnum.....

[cullman]

That's because Candians know their place and speak proper American... except for a fixation for "-our" instead of "-or" ("flavour"), and some silly reversal of "re" for "er": theatre, metre, etc...). Oh yes, and calling the last letter of the alphabet "Zed".

:wink:

...jewellery, programme...

By the way, speaking of new words: Link to: Do You Speak American? Words That Shouldn't Be?

"A person who creates new words, or makes a point of using them, is called a neologist. In his new book, Presidential Voices, author and noted linguist Allan Metcalf points out that to date, George W. Bush and Thomas Jefferson are front runners among presidential neologists. (Jefferson is said to have originated over 100 new words or phrases.)"

We (Canadians) have to draw the line somewhere and haven't adopted GW Bush's "misunderestimate" or "embetterment."

cman :P

[MJD]

Re: Priorities

The Americans found/named the element first, called it "aluminum."

Absolutely wrong, yet constantly repeated for some bizarre reason. Sir Humphry Davey proposed Aluminum in the early 19th century as the name of the element but this was not accepted by IUPAC at that time and which decided on Aluminium to bring it into alignment with the standard naming convention. This was accepted everywhere as the standard usage, including in the US, until 1925 when the American Chemical Society reverted to the use of Aluminum. So the US didn't discover or name it but they did manage to get it wrong in 1925. That's something to be proud of I suppose....

Next up for renaming Strontum, Polonum, Uranum, Plutonum, Hafnum.....

So what is the story behind Platinum?

[Daisy]

Re: Priorities

So what is the story behind Platinum?

Since its an alloy i assume the chemists don't worry about the name so much.

[gh]

That'll be news to Mendeleyev!

[Athleticsimaging]

Re: Priorities

So what is the story behind Platinum?

The use of -um or -ium is supposed to be used based on the Latin root word, thus platina, "little silver", becomes platinum and "Tantalus" becomes Tantalum and "manganese(mangnese)" becomes manganum, except it didn't!

Like all language the usual historical issues of familiar use, poor Latin knowledge or sheer bloody mindedness sometimes outweighed the "correct" usage. This is similar to oxygen which would be oxygenium in Latin.

Platinum was well known to pre-Columbian peoples and definitely before -ium was decided as the standard elemental suffix otherwise it might be known today as Platinium even though it would not be correct Latin.

Another well known element plumbum is officially designated as lead but still retains its Latin naming when it appears as Pb on the periodic table.

[Daisy]

That'll be news to Mendeleyev!

:? Good thing I'm not a chemist

[gh]

Re: Priorities

[...Another well known element plumbum is officially designated as lead but still retains its Latin naming when it appears as Pb on the periodic table.

And of course our word "plumber" comes because the Romans did their piping w/ lead (which led to other problems, of course).

So--trivia question--why is Tungsten on the periodic table as W?

[dakota]

Re: Priorities

So--trivia question--why is Tungsten on the periodic table as W?

Sounds like a case for Wolfram and Hart.


For what it's worth if you type aluminum into Wikipedia it redirects you to aluminium....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium# ... re_history

[tandfman]

Re: Priorities

So--trivia question--why is Tungsten on the periodic table as W?

Because it was discovered by President Bush?

[gh]

Re: Priorities

So--trivia question--why is Tungsten on the periodic table as W?

Sounds like a case for Wolfram and Hart.
...

I wondered if any Angel fans were going to leap on that one!